Russia overnight launched its largest aerial assault on Ukraine’s capital since the start of the war just hours after President Donald Trump signaled dimming prospects for a ceasefire following a telephone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
While the attacks primarily targeted Kyiv, across Ukraine at least 23 people were injured in the strikes, which involved about 540 drones and 11 missiles, according to the country’s military.
“Russia is showing it has no intention of ending the war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday morning on X.
It was a “brutal, sleepless night” for Kyiv residents, he added.
Out of the 23 people injured, 14 had been hospitalized, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram after several buildings were partially damaged and set ablaze. Damage was recorded in six of Kyiv’s 10 districts and debris raining down ignited a fire at a medical facility, he said.
Meanwhile, Russia intercepted 48 Ukrainian drones launched over its territory, the Defense Ministry said on Telegram. Two people were injured after four fell in Moscow, regional Gov. Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram.
Despite international calls for a ceasefire to end the war, which began when Putin launched a large-scale invasion in 2022, Moscow has plowed ahead with its attacks.
This growing intensity has frustrated Trump, who repeatedly pledged on his presidential campaign to end the war within 24 hours of becoming president — or even before.
On Thursday, Trump told reporters that he “didn’t make any progress” with Putin “at all” in their call. He added that he would call Zelenskyy on Friday morning.
“I’m not happy about that, I’m not happy,” Trump said, noting that he doesn’t believe Putin is ready to end the war. “I’m very disappointed.”
Kyiv, which relies heavily on U.S. military aid and has been calling for more help is facing an adversary that is slowly making battlefield gains while sticking to its central demands for Ukraine to cede territory, despite claims to be willing to seek a negotiated end to the war.
Russia already occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including areas it has illegally annexed.
The Kremlin said Trump had raised “the issue of an immediate ceasefire” in the call, their sixth known call since he returned to the White House in January, but the Russian leader said he “will not back down.”
“Vladimir Putin stated that Russia continues to seek a political resolution to the conflict through negotiations,” Kremlin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said in a briefing Thursday.
But the Kremlin has so far not offered concessions on its central demands that Ukraine should cede territory and give up on joining NATO.
While Kyiv or the White House did not say what the call between Trump and Zelenskyy would involve, the Ukrainian president is widely expected to renew his calls for more military aid and U.S. sanctions against Russia. Ukraine is still reeling from Trump’s decision this week to halt some U.S. military equipment deliveries, which include vital air defense systems.
“Without truly large-scale pressure, Russia will not change its dumb, destructive behavior,” Zelenskyy said, stressing that it “primarily” depends on the U.S. to “change the situation for the better.”
Earlier this week, the Pentagon halted weapons shipments to Ukraine amid concerns, which some officials have disputed, that it could undermine the U.S. stockpile. The weapons being held include thousands of high explosive munitions, precision guided missiles, grenade launchers and Patriot interceptors that Ukraine would use to defend against Russian missiles, according to four defense officials and congressional sources.
“We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters Wednesday. “We have to look out for America and defending our homeland and our troops around the world.”
Michael Bociurkiw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said Trump’s inaction and his outright blaming of Ukraine at times is likely seen by Putin as an invitation to press forward on the battlefield.
“Putin sees this as almost an invitation to bomb, bomb the heck out of Ukrainian cities and to grab more territory,” he said in a telephone interview from the southwestern Ukrainian city of Odesa.
Keir Giles, a senior fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, said Trump’s call with Zelenskyy on Friday is unlikely to bring any substantial progress.
Past talks between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents have proven to yield as little impact on the overall direction of U.S. policy as Trump’s “occasional outbursts” on social media that Putin is not “playing along” with what he wants, Giles said in an email.
