Moscow launched a large-scale airstrike against Ukraine tonight, with explosions rocking Kiev and other cities across the country. The Ukrainian media reported it, citing witnesses and local authorities. Kiev residents heard explosions in the city at around 1.10am local time, shortly after the Air Force issued a missile warning. About 30 minutes later several other explosions occurred. Explosions were also reported in Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and the port city of Izmail.
The toll from the Russian attacks that hit Kiev last night is at least two dead, the Ukrainian authorities have announced, and the toll from the Russian raids that hit the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia last night is at least 13 injured, according to local authorities cited by the Kiev media. A fire broke out on the eighth and ninth floors of a skyscraper in the Dniprovskyi district following the drone attack, explains the head of the capital’s Military Administration Tymur Tkachenko quoted by local media. Damage was also reported in the Pechersky and Desnyansky neighborhoods.
Ukrainian forces, on the other hand, carried out an attack in the last 24 hours against the chemical plant in Bryansk, southwest of Moscow, a key facility within Russia’s military-industrial complex, Kiev’s General Staff said on Facebook, quoted by Ukrainian media, including Ukrinform, which specifies that it was a “large-scale combined air and missile attack” in which they were used also British aircraft-launched Storm Shadow long-range guided cruise missiles. The missiles, it continues, managed to “successfully penetrate the Russian air defense system”.
The Ukrainian General Staff explains that the damage to the Bryansk plant is “massive”, although its quantification is still being verified. “The Bryansk chemical plant is an important part of Russia’s defense industry. The plant produces gunpowder, explosives and rocket fuel components used in ammunition and missiles that Russia uses to attack Ukraine,” Ukrinform read. The news was highlighted by the BBC, the broadcaster of the country producing the Storm Shadows, which explains that the cruise missile is launched from an aircraft, probably an F-16, from a distance of about 250 km from the target, and then swoops down to a few meters from the ground, so as to escape radar, and is then guided to the target by the GPS while following the conformation of the ground and a camera on the nose frames the point to hit. “The attack – writes the BBC – occurred on the same day that British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and other European leaders promised to “increase pressure on the Russian economy and its defense industry” until Russian leader Vladimir Putin “is ready to make peace”.
Sweden, Zelensky’s visit today for “defense exports”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to Sweden today and the two countries will make an announcement on “defense exports”, the Stockholm government said in a statement this morning. Zelensky and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will meet in the city of Linkoping, home of the defense group Saab, manufacturer of the Gripen fighter. “After the meeting, Kristersson and Zelensky will hold a joint press conference to make an announcement on defense exports,” Stockholm said. “After their meeting, Kristersson and Zelensky will hold a joint press conference to make an announcement regarding the export of defense products,” the government said in a statement. “A strong and capable Ukraine is a key priority for Sweden and we will continue to ensure that Ukraine can counter Russian aggression,” Kristersson wrote on the social media platform The press conference is scheduled for 3pm.
Budapest fades, “Trump and Putin won’t see each other anytime soon”. Lavrov froze Rubio: “An immediate ceasefire is excluded”
There are no plans for a meeting “in the immediate future” between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin: five days after the long phone call between the two leaders, in which they hypothesized a new face-to-face meeting in Budapest within two weeks, everything could be called into question regarding the peace negotiations in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, will travel to Washington, where he will meet the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
No press conference is scheduled. “He will be in the United States to discuss various aspects related to NATO support for Ukraine and US-led efforts towards lasting peace,” an official says.
The statement by a “senior official” of the White House, cited by international agencies, follows a telephone conversation between Serghei Lavrov and Marco Rubio, defined by the same source as “productive”. But during which the Russian Foreign Minister clearly told the US Secretary of State that Moscow remains opposed to an immediate ceasefire, hoped for in recent days by Trump and requested today in a joint statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the main European leaders. As for the possible new summit between the US and Russia, “neither President Trump nor President Putin have indicated precise dates, preparation is needed, serious preparation”, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
According to Lavrov, a simple freeze in fighting would “forget the root causes of this conflict”, which must be addressed in peace negotiations. First among these, according to Russia, is the expansion of NATO to the east, up to the possible entry into the Atlantic Alliance of Ukraine, which Moscow sees as a direct threat to its security. Furthermore, an immediate cessation of fighting would go against the “agreements reached during the long negotiations” between Putin and Trump at the August 15th summit in Alaska, insisted Lavrov, who last February had praised the US president as “the only Western leader” to have understood Russian fears. And precisely in Alaska, adds the head of Moscow’s diplomacy, Trump had also argued that “a lasting and sustainable peace is needed and not an immediate ceasefire”. As for the statement by Zelensky and the Europeans, who according to Bloomberg are working on their own 12-point peace plan, according to Moscow it is just a campaign by the EU to try to prevent the American and Russian leaders from meeting again. “There is no issue that interests them, except how to damage Russia, undermine our positions and make it more difficult for us to solve the problems we face – accused Deputy Foreign Minister Serghei Ryabkov -. This is the sole objective of all EU policy. They are the most destructive force on the international scene”.
Ryabkov also denied a CNN report that a planned in-person meeting between Lavrov and Rubio had been postponed. “I would like to underline that it is impossible to suspend something that has not yet been agreed upon,” said the deputy minister, according to whom “the issue of a meeting “was not raised in any specific way before or during the talks” between the two foreign ministers yesterday. “It exists as an idea, but it is premature to talk about a date,” added Ryabkov.
Finally, the Wall Street Journal cites American, European and Ukrainian officials according to whom in the meeting which took place last Friday at the White House, Trump told Zelensky not only that he will not hand over the Tomahawk long-range missiles to him, but also that the return of Donbass to Ukraine, largely occupied by Russian troops, is not a priority and that he seeks to resolve the conflict quickly, regardless of fate of the region.