US President Donald Trump has called Vladimir Putin “crazy” after the largest drone and missile attack yet on Ukraine which killed at least 12 people and injured dozens.
Trump made it clear he is losing patience with his Russian counterpart Putin, writing on social media: “I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!”
He added that Putin is “needlessly killing a lot of people” by firing missiles and drones into Ukrainian cities “for no reason whatsoever.”
Late on Sunday, Ukrainian cities came under attack for a third straight night with Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reporting that air defence forces were working in the capital against enemy drones.
- Ukraine is hit by the largest air strike in a single night, as Martha Fairlie reports for ITV News
Ukrainian officials described it as the largest aerial assault since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Russia hit Ukraine with 367 drones and missiles, according to Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian missiles and drones hit more than 30 cities and villages, and urged Western partners to ramp up sanctions on Russia.
“These were deliberate strikes on ordinary cities,” Zelenskyy wrote on X, adding that Sunday’s targets included Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, Chernihiv, Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Cherkasy regions.
“America’s silence, the silence of others in the world, only encourages” Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said.
“Without truly strong pressure on the Russian leadership, this brutality cannot be stopped. Sanctions will certainly help.”
The strikes came after Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds more prisoners on Sunday in the third and last part of a major exchange that was a rare moment of cooperation in otherwise failed efforts to reach a ceasefire in the more than three years of war.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said each side exchanged 303 soldiers, following the release of 307 combatants and civilians each on Saturday, and 390 on Friday — the biggest total swap of the war.
Zelenskyy confirmed Sunday’s exchange, saying on X that “303 Ukrainian defenders are home.”
He noted that the troops returning to Ukraine were members of the “Armed Forces, the National Guard, the State Border Guard Service, and the State Special Transport Service.”
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