By Andrew E. Kramer and Matthew Mpoke Bigg
Russia launched a fresh wave of predawn missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and several other large Ukrainian cities Tuesday, the second day of a deadly, far-reaching bombing campaign that comes as Moscow fights to fend off a Ukrainian offensive on Russian soil.
The early-morning barrage hit a hotel in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, killing four people and wounding several others, according to the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, who posted photographs showing the ruins of the hotel. Local authorities said two people also were killed in the city of Zaporizhzhia and that debris from downed missiles or drones sparked small fires in the capital, Kyiv.
Despite the bombardments of the last two days, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a forum in Kyiv that he would press ahead with a diplomatic strategy to start talks.
Russia has over the past year fired large volleys roughly once a month in attempts to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defense systems with drones and missiles launched from multiple directions.
Many areas close to the front lines in Ukraine come under daily assault from Russian forces. But this week’s strikes have revived a broader sense of fear among civilians in bigger cities as air raid sirens blare, and drones and missiles tear into hotels and residential buildings. Attacks on energy infrastructure have disrupted water and power supplies, deepening the hardships of war.
“It was hard yesterday,” said Samir Mamedov, 33, a Kyiv resident who works in business development. “We were running to the shelter because it was a big bombing.”
But he added that people in his circle were now accustomed to the conflict. “Last year we thought that the war would be finished soon, but everyone is getting used to the idea that this war is not going to end,” he said.
The barrage that began Monday comes at a tumultuous moment, just three weeks after Ukraine launched an incursion into the Kursk region of southern Russia.
At a forum featuring military and government leaders Tuesday, just hours after the attacks, Zelenskyy laid out looming challenges for Ukraine and what he described as a four-pronged strategy of diplomacy and military efforts to bring Russia to the negotiating table.
The diplomatic track is aimed at enlisting the broadest support possible among nations for Ukraine’s negotiating positions before a planned summit in November, to which Russian representatives will be invited, Zelenskyy said. Ukraine is also seeking security guarantees from allies, including a request to join NATO.
Militarily, Zelenskyy said, Ukraine has taken the initiative with an incursion into Russian territory. As a fourth point, he cited economic measures without elaborating.
Zelenskyy said he would present that plan to President Joe Biden at a meeting in September. He also invited the Democratic and Republican nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, to review the strategy.
Still, he said, for now there were no indications that President Vladimir Putin of Russia intended to end the war through negotiations, and pointed to the missile barrage that hit Ukraine this week as a sign Russia does not want talks. Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Monday that, after the Ukrainian attack into Russia, the topic of talks had “lost its relevance.”
Zelenskyy conceded that the incursion into Kursk had not caused Russia to withdraw forces now fighting in eastern Ukraine and move them to the defense of Kursk. Russian troops are approaching the outskirts of the city of Pokrovsk, where residents were packing and evacuating Tuesday.
“This operation did unveil certain matters, political as well,” Zelenskyy said of Ukraine’s surprise attack into Russia. “It started showing the Russian public it is more important for Putin to grab a town they’ve never heard about somewhere in Ukraine than to defend his own territory,” he said. “It gradually opened many eyes.”
Analysts have suggested a different possibility: that the incursion could have a rally-around-the-flag effect for Russians.
The commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, speaking at the same forum in Kyiv as Zelenskyy, said Tuesday that Ukraine has taken control of 100 settlements in Kursk. Russian authorities have repeatedly insisted the situation was under control and that its forces were repulsing the attack. The claims could not be confirmed independently.
Putin had promised a decisive response, and Peskov reiterated that message Monday, saying Russia would inflict “an appropriate response.”
It was unclear whether the attacks this week constituted that retaliation.
Zelenskyy vowed Tuesday to “pay Russia back” for the strikes.
“Crimes against humanity cannot be committed with impunity,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram.
Since the incursion into Russia began, Ukrainian troops have gone beyond Kursk to the neighboring region of Belgorod. On Tuesday, the regional governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said Ukrainian forces had launched 23 drones and dozens of munitions at towns and villages in the area over the past 24 hours.
He also claimed there were reports of Ukrainian troops trying to break through the border in the region, the Russian state news agency Tass reported, saying the situation remained “difficult but under control,” without elaborating. That claim could not be independently verified and there was no immediate comment from Russia’s Ministry of Defense or from Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down five cruise missiles and 60 exploding drones, suggesting that Tuesday’s assault may have been smaller than the one the previous day, when Russia launched more than 200 drones and missiles. Zelenskyy called Monday’s attack “one of the largest” his country has faced since Russia’s invasion began 30 months ago.
On Tuesday, air alarms went off throughout most of the country. In Kyiv, a loud explosion echoed in the downtown area around dawn. The city’s military administration said the capital was under a “combined rocket and drone attack of the enemy,” and authorities later said falling debris from intercepted missiles or drones had set grass on fire in two city parks.
Ukraine relies on Soviet-legacy interceptors, which it had in great numbers before the invasion in 2022, and an array of Western-provided air defenses to shoot down incoming missiles and drones. They include long-range Patriots; the midrange NASAMS; and short-range, shoulder-fired Stingers, intended to prevent missiles from slipping through to hit targets.
Ukraine, though, has been attempting to ramp up its domestic military production to make itself less reliant on supplies from NATO allies.
Zelenskyy told journalists Tuesday that the country’s defense industry had created and tested Ukraine’s first domestically produced ballistic missile. He gave no further details, and the claim could not be independently verified.
The attacks this week came against the backdrop of grinding battles in eastern Ukraine.
One of Ukraine’s aims with the incursion into the Kursk region was to force the Kremlin to divert troops from the front lines in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, where they have been advancing on the city of Pokrovsk, an important transport hub for Ukrainian forces.
But Russia has been pressing on with its offensive in the Donetsk region. Syrsky said Russian forces were attempting to cut off a road that runs northeast from the city and is used as a resupply route, adding that Moscow is “increasing its presence on the Pokrovsk front.”
Military analysts have for months argued that Ukrainian military resources are already stretched thin, raising questions about whether it can continue attacking inside Russia while maintaining its defenses in the east.
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