Russia pounds Kyiv with missiles and drones hours after Trump-Putin call

Daily Mail​

4 hours ago

Russia battered Kyiv with missiles and drones in an all-night attack just hours after Donald Trump admitted he made no headway with Vladimir Putin in a call between the two presidents yesterday. Air raid alerts lasted more than eight hours overnight as Russia launched a total of 539 drones and 11 missiles targeting the Ukrainian territory, Ukraine's Air Force said. The punishing barrage injured at least 23 people, damaging railway infrastructure and setting buildings and cars on fire throughout the city, authorities in the Ukrainian capital said early this morning, with rescuers still searching for casualties.
Trump, who was full of bluster yesterday after Congress passed the Republican party 's so-called Big, Beautiful Bill ahead of the July 4 deadline, was taken down a peg by reporters who questioned whether an hour-long call with his Russian counterpart had yielded any results. 'We had a call. It was a pretty long call. We talked about a lot of things, including Iran , and we also talked about, as you know, the war with Ukraine. And I'm not happy about that,' he said. 'I didn't make any progress with him today at all,' Trump scoffed.
Moments after Putin hung up the phone, the Kremlin reiterated that Moscow would keep pushing to solve the conflict's 'root causes' - and then proceeded to batter Ukraine with missiles and drones throughout the night. It comes days after the White House announced a suspension of arms deliveries to Ukraine, prompting warnings by Kyiv that the move would weaken its ability to defend against airstrikes and battlefield advances .
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped to speak with Trump today about resuming the provision of military aid. On Monday, the White House elected to halt some key weapons shipments to Ukraine that were promised under the Biden administration in a devastating blow to Kyiv . 'This decision was made to put America's interests first following a DOD (Department of Defense) review of our nation's military support and assistance to other countries across the globe,' White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said on Tuesday.
Washington did not specify what kind of arms would be restricted, but missiles for Patriot air defence systems, precision artillery and Hellfire missiles are said to be among the items being held back. Air defence systems in particular are vital for Kyiv to counter the almost nightly aerial attacks unleashed by Moscow. Ukraine's Ministry of Defence said that it had not received any official notification from the US about either a suspension or revision of deliveries, with Zelensky set to speak directly with Trump later today to clarify the situation.
The Foreign Ministry meanwhile warned that 'any delay' would only 'encourage' Russia to continue the war. 'Ukraine must be given all the necessary means for self-defence. Wrong decisions can only push the aggressor to escalate terror,' Foreign Minister Andrei Sybiha said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the opposite.
'The fewer the number of weapons that are delivered to Ukraine, the closer the end of the special military operation,' he remarked earlier this week. The overnight attacks were the latest in a series of Russian air strikes on Kyiv that have intensified in recent weeks and included some of the deadliest assaults of the war on the city of three million people. 'The main target of the strikes was the capital of Ukraine, the city of Kyiv!' the Air Force said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Fourteen of the 23 people hurt in the attacks suffered serious injuries and were hospitalised, Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Damage was recorded in six of Kyiv's 10 districts on both sides of the Dnipro River bisecting the city and falling drone debris set a medical facility on fire in the leafy Holosiivskyi district, Klitschko said. Ukraine's state-owned railway Ukrzaliznytsia, the country's largest carrier, said on Telegram that the attack on Kyiv damaged railway infrastructure in the city, diverting a number of passenger trains and causing delays.
Social media videos showed people running to seek shelter, firefighters fighting blazes in the dark and ruined buildings with windows and facades blown out. Ukraine's Air Force said that it had destroyed 478 of the air weapons Russia launched overnight, but that enemy airstrikes were recorded in eight locations across the country with nine missiles and 63 drones, it added.
Late on Thursday, Russian shelling killed five people in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a key target and railway hub that has been the focus of Russian attacks for months. Ukraine hit back with a drone strike on Moscow that targeted a power plant supplying the secretive Research Institute of Applied Chemistry, which manufactures 'pyrotechnic products' for Putin's military machine.
Fire and smoke were seen rising from the site of the strike in Sergiyev Posad, near Moscow, this morning. In Russia's Rostov region, Ukraine also hit the strategic Azov Optical-Mechanical Plant, part of the Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation. That facility makes high-precision artillery, missile and anti-tank weapons, radar homing heads for tactical guided missiles, and onboard thermal imaging and thermal location equipment.