Olesia Safronova
(Bloomberg) — Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, discussing measures to bolster Ukraine’s defenses hours after a massive Russian air assault that included a strike on a key government building in Kyiv.
The drone and missile barrage on the capital and other cities left at least four people dead and more than 44 injured, Zelenskiy said in the Telegram post on Sunday.
Ukraine’s president and Macron discussed coordinated diplomatic efforts and next steps with partners to ensure an appropriate response, according to his post. Together with France, Ukraine is preparing new measures to strengthen its defenses, Zelenskiy said.
Separately, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha spoke with EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas. He called Russia’s strike on the Cabinet of Ministers building in Kyiv for the first time in the 3 1/2 year conflict a “major escalation.”
Ukraine and its capital came under its largest drone and missile assault to date as Moscow shows little willingness to stop the 3 1/2-year war, and as European leaders fear it’s instead preparing a new offensive, rejecting overtures for peace lead by US President Donald Trump.
Kremlin forces struck the government complex in Kyiv for the first time early Sunday in what Ukraine’s foreign minister called a “serious escalation” of the conflict.
Smoke was seen billowing from the huge Cabinet of Ministers building in central Kyiv. The structure sustained damage to its roof and upper floors and crews extinguished a blaze, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in a post on X.
In all, Kremlin forces fired over 800 drones and 13 missiles, including four ballistic missiles, across the country, most of which were downed or jammed, Ukraine’s Air Force said on Telegram. At least two people were killed in Kyiv. Several drones appeared to have crossed from Belarus, Zelenskiy said earlier.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces attacked facilities linked to Ukraine’s defense industry and drone production, air bases, an industrial plant on the western edge of Ukraine’s capital, and a logistics base in the south. The ministry said all designated targets were destroyed and that no other sites in Kyiv were targeted. It didn’t address the damage to the government building and residential property.
Ukraine reported that a multi-story apartment block in one of Kyiv’s districts sustained heavy damage, with several floors partially destroyed, authorities said. Several other buildings, cars and civilian facilities also caught fire, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post. Among those killed in Kyiv were a one-year-old child, he said. At least 20 people were injured in the capital.
The central cities of Kryvyi Rih, Kremenchuk and Dnipro as well as the Black Sea port city of Odesa also came under attack, with civilian infrastructure targeted and some people injured, local authorities said. That included a major bridge over the Dnipro River in Kremenchuk, halting traffic, according to local media.
Russia has stepped up strikes on Ukraine in recent months, even as it attempts to press ahead with its ground assault in the nation’s east. July was among the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since May 2022, according to the United Nations. On Aug. 28, an air barrage aimed at Kyiv killed at least 25 people, local authorities said.
European leaders are increasingly concerned that Russia will mount a new offensive on Ukraine. At a security council meeting in Toulon at the end of August, German and French officials discussed the issue of Russian troops massing outside Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian-held stronghold in the eastern Donetsk region.
Despite Trump’s recent push to broker an end to Russia’s full-scale invasion, including a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Moscow has shown little appetite for a ceasefire. Putin said last week that if Zelenskiy is ready for talks, “let him come to Moscow.”
Zelenskiy on Friday said in an interview with ABC News that if Putin wants, he can travel to Kyiv. “I cannot go to Moscow when my country is under missiles, under attack each day. I cannot go to the capital of this terrorist,” he said.
Russia reported repelling 69 drones overnight as Ukraine continues to target energy infrastructure.
Drone debris fell on the independent Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region — which has a design capacity of 6.6 million tons a year — sparking a blaze, regional officials said on Telegram. The fire has been extinguished and no casualties were reported, the officials said.
Separately, Robert Brovdi, chief of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces said that Ukraine struck a dispatch station of an oil-product pipeline near Naytopovichi in Russia’s Bryansk region. The facility helps to transfer petroleum products from Belarus to Russia, he said. It wasn’t possible to independently verify the claim.
–With assistance from Kateryna Chursina.
(Updates with damage to Kremenchuk bridge in 11th paragraph.)
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