Trump asks Putin for a ceasefire. His answer was a resounding no | Credits: Melnikov Dmitriy/Shutterstock
Russia fired a record number of drones and missiles, striking almost every Kyiv district, hours after Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin discussed a truce bid by the US president, who said he was “disappointed” that his counterpart was not ready for peace.
An unpleasant cloud of smoke hovered over the Ukrainian capital on Friday morning, due to hours of air defence guns pounding, large explosions sounding, and drones buzzing as Russia deployed its most massive aerial attack on Kyiv, comprised of 539 drones and 11 missiles, the BBC reported.
Putin’s no to Trump’s reiterated calls for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war could not be louder since the US president assured the world he would broker peace between the two nations in one day. He boasted that on his first day in office in Washington, D.C., on January 6th.
Russia insists Ukraine is theirs
Moscow has not changed its discourse from day one of its invasion into Ukraine over three years ago, and recently, Putin equivocally said to the world that “Ukraine is ours”, as reported by viraltrendingcontent on June 30th.
Russia launched two more drones than it did on Monday, when it deployed 537, the Ukrainian Air Force said. On this occasion, 72 of the 539 drones penetrated air defences. The residents in Kyiv were overwhelmed with air raid alerts that sounded for more than eight straight hours as several waves of attacks struck the capital, the air force added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the strikes as one of the most “demonstratively significant and cynical” attacks of the war, describing a “harsh, sleepless night”.
Zelensky noted that the attacks on Ukraine came hours after Putin spoke with Trump. The Ukrainian leader said, “Russia once again demonstrates that it does not intend to end the war”. He then called on international allies to increase pressure on Russia and impose greater sanctions.
Improving air defence systems
The president of Ukraine then wrote on X that he spoke with Trump, with whom he held “a very important and fruitful conversation”.
“We had a detailed conversation about defence industry capabilities and joint production,” Zelensky said. “We are ready for direct projects with the United States and believe this is critically important for security, especially when it comes to drones and related technologies.”
According to the Belga News Agency, Trump and Zelensky discussed options to improve Ukraine’s air defence capabilities during their call.
“We discussed the possibilities of air defence and agreed that we will work together to protect Ukrainian airspace better,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram, according to the Belgian news outlet.
According to Ukrainian officials, the overnight attacks damaged railway infrastructure, while schools, buildings and cars were set ablaze across Kyiv. Poland’s Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, said the Polish consulate had also been damaged.
Russia’s defence ministry said the “massive strike” was in response to the “terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime”. The acting governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region reported one woman killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a village not far from the border on Friday night.
