A pall of acrid smoke hung over Kyiv on Friday morning following a night of intensive Russian strikes that hit almost every district of the capital, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The hours of darkness were once again punctuated by the staccato of air defence guns, buzz of drones and large explosions. Ukraine said Russia fired a record 550 drones and 11 missiles during a long night of bombardment.
The strikes came hours after a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which Trump said he was “disappointed” that Putin was not ready to end the war against Ukraine.
A woman was killed in Russia following Ukrainian drone attacks, officials said.
The acting governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region said she was killed in a strike on a village not far from the Ukrainian border.
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Russia’s overnight air strikes broke another record, Ukraine’s air force said, with 72 of the 550 drones penetrating air defences – up from a previous record of 537 launched last Saturday night.
Air raid alerts sounded for more than eight hours as several waves of attacks struck Kyiv, the “main target of the strikes”, the air force said on the messaging app Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned one of the most “demonstratively significant and cynical” attacks of the war, describing a “harsh, sleepless night”.
Noting that it came directly after Putin’s call with Trump, Zelensky added in a post on Telegram: “Russia once again demonstrates that it does not intend to end the war”.
Source: BBC
(Editor: Paul Akhagbemhe)
