An overnight aerial attack described by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “massive” struck nine areas across the country early Saturday morning, killing at least three people and injuring dozens more. Meanwhile, Kyiv temporarily took two Russian oil plants offline in its own series of long-range drone strikes.
‘Not a military necessity’
Writing on X on Saturday, Zelenskyy said that “All night, Ukraine was under a massive attack by Russia.” Forty missiles, both cruise and ballistic, as well as nearly 600 drones, targeted nine areas across Ukraine, including Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy and Kharkiv.
Zelenskyy added that the strikes targeted Ukraine’s infrastructure, “civilian enterprises” and residential areas. A cluster munition reportedly hit an apartment building in Dnipro.
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At least three people died in the strikes, though Zelenskyy did not identify who they were or where they were located. According to The Associated Press, Dnipropetrovsk Gov. Serhii Lysak said that at least 30 people were wounded in the region.
“Every such strike is not a military necessity but a deliberate strategy by Russia to terrorize civilians and destroy our infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said. He added that the international community must “strengthen [Ukraine’s] air defense, increase weapons supplies, and expand sanctions against Russia’s military machine” to bring the war to an end.
Russian oil plants taken offline
Meanwhile, on Saturday, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and Special Operations Forces carried out a series of long-range drone strikes that effectively took two Russian oil plants offline in Volgograd and Samara.
“The SBU continues its successful work on introducing drone sanctions against Russian plants and oil pumping stations,” a source with the SBU told The Kyiv Independent. “It is this infrastructure that brings petrodollar surpluses to the Russian budget, which fuel the war against Ukraine. Work on blocking these money flows will continue.”
Where does U.S. support stand?
Zelenskyy is due to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump next week on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. A sticking point in Zelenskyy’s ongoing calls for U.S. intervention involves tougher sanctions on Moscow, something Trump has at various times threatened but so far failed to impose.
Most recently, Trump said that the U.S. will move forward with a sanctions package if and when the rest of NATO countries stop purchasing Russian oil. However, Zelenskyy has said the demand is “wasting a lot of time.”
“President Trump expects strong action from Europe,” Zelenskyy told a group of reporters in Kyiv. “I think we are wasting a lot of time if sanctions are not imposed or some steps are not taken, that we very much expect from [Trump].”
During his recent trip to the U.K., Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer addressed the war in Ukraine without going into specifics on how it should end. Starmer said that Putin’s actions “are not the actions of someone who wants peace,” citing the increasing intensity of Moscow’s attacks and reports that its military is violating NATO airspace.
Similarly, Trump said that Putin has “really let me down,” citing his prior friendly relationship with the Russian president, which he thought would help bring the war to a swift conclusion.
