Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday criticized the United States and the international community for remaining silent after Russia unleashed what Ukrainian officials describing as the largest aerial assault on the country since the war began.
Russian forces launched a massive overnight barrage Saturday as 367 drones and missiles targeted more than 30 cities and villages across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv. At least 12 people were killed, according to officials, including three children in the northern region of Zhytomyr.
“The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”
President Donald Trump has called for an end to the war, but his administration has taken a softer line on Russia than previous ones, shifting American policy from supporting Ukraine towards accepting some of Russia’s account of the war.
The approach marks a sharp departure from the full-throated support Ukraine enjoyed from Washington under former President Joe Biden.
While Ukraine and its European allies have pushed for a 30-day ceasefire as a step toward ending the three-year war, those efforts suffered a setback last week when Trump declined to impose additional sanctions on Moscow for not agreeing to an immediate pause in fighting.
On Monday, Trump had a two-hour phone call with Putin, during which he appeared to have dropped his earlier insistence on a 30-day truce and suggested that he could walk away entirely from the negotiations to end the war that he once promised to end on “day one” of his second presidential term.
Moving independently of Washington, the European Union and the United Kingdom announced a new round of sanctions last week, targeting Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” — roughly 200 vessels used to transport Russian oil exports globally.
The E.U. said these were the 17th set of Europeans sanctions imposed on Russia since it invaded its neighbor in 2022.
In Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that the administration would continue to push an existing bill that could impose a 500% tariff on buyers of Russian oil and gas if there was no progress on a peace deal.
But, he added that Trump “believes that right now, you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking, and there’s value in us being able to talk and drive them to get to the table.”
The massive air raid Saturday follows a drone attack Friday that killed four people, and also coincided with the final day of a large-scale prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia, with each side set to release 1,000 detainees.
Zelenskyy posted on Telegram that the third phase of the “1000-for-1000” exchanged agreement” had been completed, which pictures of returning soldiers draped in Ukrainian flags.
The swap, the latest of dozens of exchanges since the war began and the biggest involving Ukrainian civilians, has not indicated an end to widespread fighting. Battles have continued along the roughly 620-mile front line, killing tens of thousands of soldiers.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that Moscow would give Ukraine a draft document outlining its conditions for a “sustainable, long-term, comprehensive” peace agreement, once the ongoing prisoner exchange had finished.
President Trump congratulated both sides after striking the prisoner exchange deal in Istanbul, Turkey.
But after Russia’s largest attack yet, Kyiv remains wary of easing pressure.
“Without pressure, nothing will change and Russia and its allies will only build up forces for such murders in Western countries,” Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.
“Moscow will fight as long as it has the ability to produce weapons.”
Reuters and Ostap Hunkevych contributed.
Recent Comments