A large-scale Russian drone and missile attack across Ukraine killed at least six people, including a woman and her two young daughters, officials said Wednesday, as U.S.-led efforts to end the war floundered and Ukraine’s president sought more foreign military help.
Waves of missiles and drones throughout the night targeted at least eight Ukrainian cities, as well as a village in the Kyiv region where a strike set fire to a house in which the mother and her 6-month and 12-year-old daughters were staying, regional head Mykola Kalashnyk said.
At least 29 people, including five children, were injured in Kyiv, authorities said.
Russian drones also hit a kindergarten in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, later Wednesday when children were in the building, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. One person was killed and six were injured but no children were physically harmed, he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said many of the children were in shock. He said the attack targeted the wider Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy, and Sumy regions.
Russia fired 405 strike and decoy drones and 28 missiles at Ukraine, mainly targeting Kyiv, Ukraine’s air force said.
Peace efforts stall
U.S. President Donald Trump 's efforts to end the war that started with Russia's all-out invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago have failed to gain traction. Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin's refusal to budge from his conditions for a settlement after Ukraine offered a ceasefire and direct peace talks.
Trump said Tuesday that his plan for a swift meeting with Putin was on hold because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time.” European leaders accused Putin of stalling.
Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Trump’s proposal to freeze the conflict where it stands on the front line “was a good compromise” — a step that could pave the way for negotiations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the planned summit requires careful preparation, suggesting that laying the groundwork could be protracted. “No one wants to waste time: neither President Trump nor President Putin,” he said.
In what appeared to be a public reminder of Russian atomic arsenals, Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the country’s strategic nuclear forces.
Zelenskyy urged the European Union, the United States and the Group of Seven industrialized nations to force Russia to the negotiating table. Pressure can be applied on Moscow “only through sanctions, long-range (missile) capabilities, and coordinated diplomacy among all our partners,” he said.
Zelenskyy credited Trump's remarks that he was considering supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for Putin's willingness to meet. The American president later said he was wary of tapping into the U.S. supply of Tomahawks over concerns about available stocks.
Russia has not made significant progress on the battlefield where a war of attrition has taken a high toll on Russian infantry and Ukraine is short of manpower, military analysts say. Both sides have invested in long-range strike capabilities to hit rear areas.
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Ukraine says it hit key Russian chemical plant
Ukraine’s army general staff said the country’s forces struck a chemical plant in Russia’s Bryansk region on Tuesday night using British-made air-launched Storm Shadow missiles. The plant is an important part of the Russian military and industrial complex producing gunpowder, explosives, missile fuel and ammunition, it said.
Russian officials in the region confirmed an attack but did not mention the plant.
Ukraine also claimed overnight strikes on Saransk mechanical plant in Mordovia, Russia, which produces components for ammunition and mines, and the Makhachkala oil refinery in the Dagestan republic of Russia.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed 33 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, including the area around St. Petersburg. Eight airports temporarily suspended flights overnight because of the attack.
Sweden mulls sending fighter jets to Ukraine
Zelenskyy arrived Wednesday in Oslo, Norway, and after that flew to Stockholm, where he and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson signed an agreement exploring the possibility of Ukraine buying up to 150 Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets over the next decade or more. Ukraine has already received American-made F-16s and French Mirages.
Also Wednesday, Trump is expected to hold talks at the White House with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. The military alliance has been coordinating deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, many of them purchased from the United States by Canada and European countries.
More international economic sanctions on Russia are likely to be discussed at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday. On Friday, a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing — a group of 35 countries who support Ukraine — is to take place in London.
Russia's long barrage
Moscow's overnight attack also targeted energy infrastructure and caused rolling blackouts, officials said. Russia has been trying to cripple the country’s power grid before winter sets in.
“We heard a loud explosion and then the glass started to shatter, and then everything was caught up in a burst of fire, the embers were everywhere,” Olena Biriukova, a 58-year-old living in a Kyiv apartment building, told The Associated Press.
“It was very scary for kids," she said.
Two more people were found dead in the Dnipro district of the Ukrainian capital, where emergency services rescued 10 people after a fire caused by drone debris hit the sixth floor of a 16-story residential building, local authorities said.
And in Kyiv's Darnytskyi district, emergency services were responding after drone debris hit a 17-story apartment block, causing a fire on five floors. Fifteen people were rescued, including two children.
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Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova, Illia Novikov, Samya Kullab, Andrea Rosa and Yehor Konovalov in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
