Russia pummelled Kyiv with the largest drone attack of the war, injuring at least 23 people and damaging buildings across the Ukrainian capital hours after US President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, officials said on Friday.
Air raid sirens, the whine of kamikaze drones and booming detonations reverberated from early evening until dawn as Russia launched what Ukraine’s Air Force said was a total of 539 drones and 11 missiles.
Families huddled in underground metro stations for shelter. Acrid smoke hung over the city centre. Outside a high-rise apartment block damaged by a drone, residents stood around surveying the scene as the clean-up job began. Some cried. Others looked on silently.
“I woke up to the sound of explosions, first the Shahed drones started buzzing, and then the explosions began,” said 40-year-old resident Maria Hilchenko. “Then people started screaming outside. The explosions from the Shaheds kept coming.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack “deliberately massive and cynical”.
“Notably, the first air raid alerts in our cities and regions yesterday began to blare almost simultaneously with media reports discussing a phone call between President Trump and Putin,” Zelensky said on X.
“Yet again, Russia is showing it has no intention of ending the war and terror,” he added, calling for increased pressure on Russia and more air defence equipment.
Kyiv officials said the attack damaged about 40 apartment blocks, passenger railway infrastructure, five schools and kindergartens, cafes and many cars in six of Kyiv’s 10 districts. Poland said the consular section of its embassy was damaged in central Kyiv, adding that staff were unharmed.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that 14 of the injured were taken to the hospital.
Ukraine’s state-owned railway Ukrzaliznytsia, the country’s largest carrier, said on Telegram that the attack on Kyiv forced them to divert a number of passenger trains, causing delays.
Damage was recorded on both sides of the wide Dnipro River bisecting the capital, and falling drone debris set a medical facility on fire in the leafy Holosiivskyi district, Klitschko said.
Russian airstrikes on Kyiv have intensified in recent weeks and included some of the deadliest assaults of the war on the city of 3 million people.
Call for sanctions
Trump said that the call with Putin on Thursday resulted in no progress at all on efforts to end the war, and the Kremlin reiterated that Moscow would keep pushing to solve the conflict’s “root causes”.
Speaking to reporters on his return to Washington from a trip to Iowa, Trump said, “I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there, and I’m very disappointed.
“I’m just saying I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad.”
The decision by Washington to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine prompted warnings by Kyiv that the move would weaken its ability to defend against intensifying airstrikes and battlefield advances.
On Friday, Zelensky called for increased pressure on Moscow to change its “dumb, destructive behaviour”.
“For every such strike against people and human life, they must feel appropriate sanctions and other blows to their economy, their revenues, and their infrastructure,” he said.
Ukraine’s Air Force said it destroyed 478 of the air weapons Russia launched overnight. However, airstrikes were recorded in eight locations across Ukraine, with nine missiles and 63 drones, it added.
Social media videos showed people running to seek shelter, firefighters fighting blazes in the dark and ruined buildings with windows and facades blown out.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian. Many more soldiers are believed to have been killed on the front line, but neither side releases military casualty figures.
Late on Thursday, Russian shelling killed five people in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Ukraine said.
Trump, Zelensky discuss weapons, escalating Russian strikes
Zelensky said he discussed air defences in a conversation with Trump later on Friday, agreeing to work on increasing Kyiv’s capability to “defend the sky” as Russian attacks escalate.
He added in a message on Telegram that he discussed joint defence production, as well as joint purchases and investments with the US leader.
Ukraine has been asking Washington to sell it more Patriot missiles and systems that it sees as key to defending its cities from intensifying Russian air strikes.
A decision by Washington to halt some shipments of weapons to Ukraine prompted warnings by Kyiv that the move would weaken its ability to defend against Russia’s airstrikes and battlefield advances. Germany said it is in talks on buying Patriot air defence systems to bridge the gap.
One source briefed on the call told Reuters they were optimistic that supplies of Patriot missiles could resume after what they called a “very good” conversation between the presidents.
US outlet Axios reported, citing unnamed sources, that the call lasted around 40 minutes, and that Trump told Zelensky he would check what US weapons due to be sent to Ukraine, if any, had been put on hold.
Zelensky, speaking later in his nightly video address, said he and Trump had agreed to “arrange a meeting between our teams to strengthen air defences.
“We had a very detailed discussion on joint production. We need it, America needs it.”
Speaking to reporters as he left Washington for Iowa earlier on Friday, Trump said “we haven’t” completely paused the flow of weapons but blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for sending so many weapons that it risked weakening US defences.
“We’re giving weapons, but we’ve given so many weapons. But we are giving weapons,” he said. “And we’re working with them and trying to help them, but we haven’t [completely stopped]. You know, Biden emptied out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves.”
The pause in US weapons shipments caught Ukraine off guard and generated widespread confusion about Trump’s current views on the conflict, after saying last week he would try to free up a Patriot missile defence system for use by Kyiv.
Ukrainian leaders called in the acting US envoy to Kyiv on Wednesday to underline the importance of military aid from Washington, and caution that the pause in its weapons shipments would weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia.
The Pentagon’s move has meant a cut in deliveries of the Patriot defence missiles that Ukraine relies on to destroy fast-moving ballistic missiles, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
