Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, early on Sunday and injured at least seven people, as debris set an apartment building on fire and damaged homes, officials said. The head of Kyiv city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said “more than a dozen enemy drones” were flying around the capital early on Sunday. The Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the city was “under attack” but “air defences are operating”, telling citizens to stay in shelters.
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A day earlier, Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 14 ballistic missiles and 250 attack drones on Kyiv, injuring 15 people in one of the biggest assaults on the Ukrainian capital since the beginning of the war more than three years ago. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the attacks indicated Moscow was “prolonging the war … Only additional sanctions against key sectors of the Russian economy will force Moscow to agree to a ceasefire.” Patrick Wintour reports Trump’s refusal to impose the promised “bone-crushing sanctions” over Russia’s rejection of a 30-day ceasefire has left European leaders frustrated and despondent.
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The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, spoke of “another night of terror for Ukrainian civilians”, posting on X. “These are not the actions of a country seeking peace,” Lammy said of the Russian strike. Katarina Mathernová, the European Union’s ambassador to Kyiv, described the attack as “horrific”. “If anyone still doubts Russia wants war to continue – read the news.”
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In addition, 13 civilians were killed on Friday and overnight into Saturday in Russian attacks in Ukraine’s south, east and north, regional authorities said. Three people died after a Russian ballistic missile targeted port infrastructure in Odesa on the Black Sea, local governor Oleh Kiper reported. Russia later said the strike targeted a cargo ship carrying military equipment.
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On Saturday 307 Russian prisoners of war were exchanged for the same number of Ukrainian soldiers on the second day of an extended prisoner swap set to be the largest in the three-year war, according to announcements in Kyiv and Moscow. “Tomorrow we expect more,” Zelenskyy posted. The first part of the large-scale swap involved 270 soldiers and civilians from each side on Friday. More swaps are expected on Sunday to bring the total to 1,000 as agreed in talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul last week.
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In north-eastern Ukraine, mayor Ihor Terekhov of Kharkiv, the second-biggest city, said drones hit three city districts and damaged a business. Terekhov said many drones remained in the air over the city.
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Russian troops advancing slowly on the eastern front captured two settlements in Donetsk region as well as one in Ukraine’s northern region of Sumy, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday. The claims could not be confirmed. A Russian defence statement said its forces had captured the village of Stupochky in Donetsk region, east of Kostiantynivka, a town under recent Russian pressure. It also said it had taken control of Otradne, a village farther west along the 1,000-km front and announced the capture of Loknya, a village inside the Russian border in Sumy region. Ukraine acknowledged no such losses.
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Russia’s defence ministry said that early on Saturday its forces shot down more than 100 Ukrainian drones over six provinces in western and southern Russia. The drone strikes injured three people in the Tula region south of Moscow, local governor Dmitriy Milyaev said, and sparked a fire at an industrial site there. Andriy Kovalenko, of Ukraine’s national security council, said on Saturday the drones hit a plant in Tula that makes chemicals used in explosives and rocket fuel….
ISW…Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 24, 2025
- Russian forces conducted one of the largest combined drone and missile strikes of the war against Ukraine on the night of May 23 to 24, but used fewer missiles than in previous large-scale combined strikes.
- Ukraine and Russia conducted a second round of prisoner-of-war (POW) exchanges on May 24 as part of a larger 1,000-for-1,000 exchange agreed upon during recent bilateral negotiations in Istanbul.
- Russian officials will reportedly submit a draft document of their conditions for peace in Ukraine following the conclusion of the POW exchanges, although Russia’s conditions are unlikely to be anything short of Ukraine’s full surrender.
- Russian forces have significantly expanded their salient southwest of Kostyantynivka in recent weeks and established sufficient positions to launch an offensive operation toward Kostyantynivka from the south or to support the envelopment of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad from the northeast in the coming weeks and months.
- The Russian salient southwest of Kostyantynivka is likely sufficient to support a future Russian offensive operation toward Kostyantynivka or Pokrovsk, but Russian forces will have to make further advances from Chasiv Yar and Toretsk and west of Pokrovsk before Russian forces will pose a significant threat to either of these towns.
- Russian forces recently advanced near Lyman, Toretsk, and Novopavlivka.
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Trump’s Putin 2 hour talk has drawn NO results…..
So much for Donald Trump’s “force of personality” forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to prove he wants to end the war in Ukraine.
The president’s hyped-up phone call with his Russian counterpart on Monday mostly served to highlight how far away any such breakthrough may be.
And more importantly, looking ahead, it raised new questions about how involved Trump really wants to be and widened transatlantic divisions on ending the war.
Ukraine and its European partners are pushing for a 30-day ceasefire to allow time for talks on a permanent peace agreement to start. Moscow has refused, insisting on talks now on a final deal. Since this process could take months, it looks like a ruse to allow Russia to press ahead with its offensives that are killing innocent civilians.
By announcing after his call with Putin that Ukraine and Russia would now hold talks “as only they can” on a ceasefire and ultimately an end to the war while the fighting rages, Trump sided with his friend in the Kremlin.
Trump also added new ambiguity to an increasingly toothless peace effort on Monday. He did nothing to quell an earlier suggestion by Vice President JD Vance that the US might simply wash its hands if there’s no progress. “I tell you, big egos involved, but I think something’s going to happen. And if it doesn’t, I just back away and they’re going to have to keep going,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office after the call.
Threatening to walk away is a classic dealmaker’s gambit. But given the administration’s extreme skepticism of aiding Ukraine, this might not be a bluff….
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