RUSSIAN attacks on major Ukrainian cities have killed at least 12 people as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits Washington, DC, supported by European leaders, for high-stakes peace talks with United States President Donald Trump that could determine Ukraine’s future and its fate in the war, now in its fourth year.
An entire family, including a toddler and a 16-year-old, were among seven people killed in an overnight drone strike on a residential neighbourhood in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, authorities said on Monday. The attack also injured 20 people, including six children.
Russian forces killed five people and injured four in attacks in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where some of the fiercest fighting on the ground rages on and where Russian President Vladimir Putin, feeling Moscow has the upper hand, seeks Ukraine’s withdrawal from the third of the region Kyiv still controls.
In Zaporizhzhia, a city in the southeast, 17 people were injured in an attack, according to Governor Ivan Fedorov. Russian air raids also targeted the northeastern region of Sumy and the southern region of Odesa.
Ukraine’s air force said Russian forces launched 140 drones and four missiles at Ukraine overnight, adding that 88 drones had been downed.
Russia has been intensifying its fight in Ukraine. According to the United Nations monitoring mission on Ukraine, about 2,600 drone attacks were recorded in the past month, the highest rate since the beginning of the war, and more than 300 civilians were killed.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military said on Monday that its drones had struck an oil-pumping station in the Tambov region, a strike 1,923km (1,195 miles) from Ukraine, leading to the suspension of supplies via the Druzhba pipeline.
“As a result of the strike, a fire broke out at the facility. Oil pumping through the Druzhba main oil pipeline was completely stopped,” the Ukrainian military’s General Staff said in a statement.
In Russia’s border region of Belgorod, four people were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack while Russian officials reported shooting down hundreds of drones and munitions.
Air raid sirens also sounded over Kyiv, journalists working with the AFP news agency heard.
The Ukrainian air force said on social media an air alert was triggered across the country because a Russian MiG-31 was detected taking off, capable of carrying Kinzhal hypersonic missiles that Moscow has been using in attacks.
Zelenskyy called the latest attacks on Ukraine “demonstrative and cynical”.
“Putin will commit demonstrative killings to maintain pressure on Ukraine and Europe, as well as to humiliate diplomatic efforts,” he wrote on X.
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv, said Zelenskyy saw the killing of civilians as a strategy aimed at giving Trump more bargaining chips with which to pressure Ukraine into accepting an unfavourable peace deal.
“This shows how much pressure Zelenskyy is under as he goes into … potentially the most vital diplomatic effort to end this war,” Stratford said.
