Russia launched overnight Thursday one of the most devastating bombardments on Ukraine's major cities since the war began, killing at least nine people, hours after President Donald Trump said he believed he had struck deals with both sides to end the war.
Drones and missiles pummeled the capital Kyiv during "a particularly horrible and loud night," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a statement. According to Ukrainian officials, 70 people were injured in addition to those killed.
Rescuers were picking through the rubble for survivors Thursday morning after the bombardment caused "destruction in residential buildings," as well fires in administrative buildings, garages, parked vehicles and dry grass, the State Emergency Service said.
Bombs also fell in the county's second city of Kharkiv, where Mayor Ihor Terekhov urged residents to "be careful!"
Hours earlier on Wednesday, Trump said in the Oval Office that "I think we have a deal with both" sides - before suggesting that an agreement with Ukraine was still pending.
"I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelenskyy," he said. "So far, it's been harder."
That came after Trump's latest criticism of Zelenskyy on Truth Social earlier in the day. He accused his Ukrainian counterpart of making "inflammatory statements" - a reference to a Wall Street Journal interview in which Zelenskyy pushed back on Washington's peace plan - and said of a deal he needed to "GET IT DONE."
For Ukrainians and their supporters abroad, the attacks symbolized the hypocrisy of Russia's position. President Vladimir Putin continues to make extreme demands - his conditions for a deal essentially resemble a Ukrainian surrender - while continuing to prosecute the invasion he launched three years ago.
Zelenskyy told the Wall Street Journal that he would never accept Russian control over Crimea, a key demand of the Kremlin's.
"Yesterday's Russian maximalist demands for Ukraine to withdraw from its regions, combined with these brutal strikes, show that Russia, not Ukraine, is the obstacle to peace," Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister said in his statement. "Moscow, not Kyiv, is where pressure should be applied."
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