Russian attacks kill 14 in Ukraine, hours before Zelenskyy visits White House

By Constant Méheut

Hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine arrived in Washington for high-stakes meetings to discuss a possible path to peace with Moscow, Russian attacks on large Ukrainian cities and villages near the front killed 14 people and injured dozens, local authorities said.

Ukrainian officials pointed to the attacks as a further sign that Russia had no intention of halting hostilities. “That’s why Putin doesn’t want to cease fire,” said Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff. “He enjoys shelling peaceful cities while talking about his desire to end the war.”

Videos of the aftermath of a strike in Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, released by local authorities show parts of a residential building’s roof and upper floors gutted, as firefighters on a ladder spray water to try to extinguish flames. Seven people were killed in the attack, including two children, and some 20 people were also injured, authorities said.

A partly blurred photo released by Ukraine’s emergency services showed a firefighter holding what looked like the body of a child. Other photos showed rescue workers searching through the rubble for survivors.

Three people were killed in a separate attack on the city of Zaporizhzhia, in southern Ukraine, and nearly 20 people injured, officials said. In Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the main theater of the battlefield, Russian shelling killed four people, according to regional prosecutors. There was no immediate public comment from Russian authorities.

Before Monday’s strikes, Russia appeared to have scaled back its air attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, in what Ukrainian officials and analysts see as an attempt by the Kremlin to curry favor with Trump during peace talks.

Trump’s typically lenient tone toward Putin soured after Russia increased drone attacks on Ukrainian cities during talks last month between Moscow and Washington, prompting Trump to complain about seeing that “a rocket hit a nursing home, or a rocket hit an apartment building and people are laying dead in the street.”

Since the beginning of August, Russia has significantly reduced the number of drones and missiles it sends each night against Ukrainian cities. Kyiv, the capital, which was hit especially hard this summer, has been largely spared from attacks recently.

Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, two cities near the front lines, have remained frequent targets despite the recent easing in Russian attacks. Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, wrote on social media that the strike on the residential building was “deliberate.”

“Five enemy ‘Shaheds’ approached it from different directions and targeted people who were peacefully sleeping at five in the morning,” Terekhov said, referring to armed drones. His statement could not be independently verified.

It is unknown whether Zelenskyy — who in his last Oval Office meeting sought to stir Trump’s compassion by showing him graphic images of Ukrainian prisoners of war — will refer to this morning’s attacks today. But several officials from his government quickly seized on them to press their case.

“Despite all of the diplomacy and peace efforts, Russia continues to kill civilians,” Andriy Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, wrote on social media.

Ukraine, for its part, has escalated attacks on Russian oil refineries, attempting to keep pressure on the Kremlin to make concessions during negotiations by targeting its key revenue source. Last week, Ukraine also claimed to have struck a major oil pumping station in Western Russia.

A United Nations report covering the period from December to May found that nearly 1,000 civilians in Ukraine, including Russian-occupied areas, had been killed during that time, a 37% increase compared with the same period the previous year.

“The war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year, is becoming increasingly deadly for civilians,” said Danielle Bell, Head of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.