Russia launches war’s largest drone attack ahead of Putin-Trump call
Russia launched on Sunday its largest drone attack on Ukraine since the start of the war, destroying homes and killing at least one woman a day before US President Donald Trump is due to discuss a proposed ceasefire with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine’s intelligence service said it also believed Moscow intended to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile later on Sunday as an attempt to intimidate the West. There was no immediate response from Moscow to the accusation.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, straining to restore ties with Washington after a disastrous February White House visit, met Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Rome on Sunday on the sidelines of Pope Leo’s inauguration. Ukrainian media said the meeting lasted 40 minutes.
Ukraine and Russia held their first face-to-face talks in more than three years on Friday, under pressure from Trump to agree to a ceasefire in a war he has pledged to bring to a quick end. The warring sides agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each but failed to agree to a truce, after Moscow presented conditions that a member of Ukraine’s delegation called “non-starters.”
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland planned to speak to Trump before the US and Russian presidents speak on Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday.
The four European leaders jointly visited Kyiv last week where they called for new sanctions on Russia unless Moscow accepts a ceasefire, and Zelenskyy has said they joined him in phoning Trump on Friday after the Russia-Ukraine talks.
After a night of air alerts, Ukraine’s air force said that as of 8 a.m. on Sunday Russia had launched 273 drones at Ukrainian cities, more than the previous record Moscow had set in February on the war’s third anniversary.
‘I could hear the drone’
In the ruins of her family home in the Obukhiv region west of Kyiv, Natalia Piven, 44, recounted how she squeezed into a cellar with her son after an air raid warning, just in time to survive a first wave of drones.
They then ran out to a bomb shelter at a kindergarten, before another wave of drones bore down on the village. Their house was completely destroyed. A 28-year-old woman who lived next door was killed. Ukrainian authorities said three other people were injured including a four-year-old child.
“I cannot get over it. I simply cannot. I could clearly hear the drone flying right towards my house,” Piven said.
Trump has shifted US rhetoric from supporting Ukraine towards accepting some of Moscow’s narrative about the war that Putin launched in 2022. But Kyiv and its European allies are working hard to persuade Trump that it is Moscow that is holding up a truce now.
Zelenskyy has said he would accept Trump’s proposal for an immediate ceasefire of at least 30 days with no conditions. Moscow says it would consider a ceasefire but only if conditions are met, including a halt in arms supplies to Kyiv.
It also says any peace talks must address the “root causes” of the conflict, including its demands that Ukraine cede territory, be disarmed and accept neutral status. Kyiv calls that tantamount to capitulation and says it would be left defenseless in the face of future Russian attacks.
On Saturday, a Russian drone attack killed nine civilians after hitting a shuttle bus in the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine, Kyiv said. Zelenskyy called the attack “deliberate” and urged stronger sanctions on Moscow, which said it had attacked a military facility.
