Russia defies US peace calls with massive Kyiv strikes, killing 15

On Thursday night, Russia sent nearly 600 drones and 31 missiles into Ukrainian airspace, targeting Kyiv and cities across the country in what Ukrainian air defenses calculated as the second-largest assault of the year. The barrage killed 15 people, four of them children, and wounded at least 48 others. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram that more bodies were likely still trapped beneath collapsed buildings, their recovery ongoing as rescue teams worked through the rubble.

The timing was deliberate. The strike came as a direct rebuke to diplomatic efforts led by the United States, which had been pressing Russia toward ceasefire negotiations. Just two weeks earlier, President Donald Trump had met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and US officials claimed Putin had agreed to accept security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace settlement. Trump had even held back from imposing new sanctions on Russia, betting that the summit would yield movement toward talks. Instead, Putin responded with one of his heaviest bombardments of the year.

Ukrainian air defenses managed to intercept 563 of the drones and 26 of the missiles—a significant portion of the incoming fire, but not enough to prevent widespread destruction. The assault included two Kinzhal missiles, nine Iskander-M missiles, and 20 Kha-101 cruise missiles, weapons designed to penetrate air defenses and strike with precision. Residential neighborhoods took direct hits. A five-story apartment building in Kyiv was partially destroyed, with rescuers digging through concrete and steel to reach trapped residents. The EU delegation's office in the capital sustained damage, as did the British Council building. Energy infrastructure across multiple regions was struck, leaving 60,000 households in the Vinnytsia region without power. A high-speed rail depot was severely damaged, forcing Ukrainian Railways to reroute at least six trains to prevent cascading delays.

Zelenskiy's response was pointed. "Russia chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table," he posted on X, underscoring the gap between what Trump believed had been agreed and what Putin was actually doing. The Russian leader continued to demand that Ukraine surrender territory—including areas his forces did not even control—and ignored Trump's explicit call for direct talks with Zelenskiy. Putin's maximalist position suggested he saw no reason to negotiate while he still held military leverage.

Trump, for his part, escalated his rhetoric. On Tuesday, he warned of "an economic war" if he could not broker an end to the fighting, saying he had "very serious" consequences in mind. "It's going to be bad for Russia, and I don't want that," he said—a statement that seemed to assume Putin would be swayed by economic threats. The evidence suggested otherwise. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses had shot down 102 Ukrainian drones overnight, a fraction of what Ukraine said it had launched, but the asymmetry in claims reflected a deeper reality: both sides were escalating, not retreating.

Ukraine, meanwhile, was striking back at Russian infrastructure. On Thursday, Ukrainian forces hit two major oil refineries—the Kuibyshev facility in Samara and the Afipsky refinery in Krasnodar—as part of an intensified campaign against Russia's energy sector. The strikes were meant to degrade Russia's ability to sustain its war effort, a tit-for-tat escalation that showed no signs of slowing.

The diplomatic track, however fragile, remained open. Senior Ukrainian officials, including Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential administration, were scheduled to travel to Washington on Friday to discuss post-war security architecture with Trump's team. They had already visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia earlier in the week and were in Switzerland on Thursday, moving between capitals in search of the guarantees Ukraine believed it needed to make any peace deal durable. The European Union's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, announced that the Russian envoy in Brussels would be summoned to explain the strikes. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the attack as "senseless," saying Putin was "killing children and civilians, and sabotaging hopes of peace."

What remained unclear was whether any of these diplomatic gestures could alter Putin's calculus. He had the military initiative, or believed he did. Trump had shown willingness to hold back sanctions and to pressure Ukraine toward a settlement. And yet Russia's response to the Alaska summit was not a softening of demands but a demonstration of force—a message that negotiations would happen, if at all, on terms Moscow dictated.