Kiev, Ukraine — Following a phone call between Presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin in which the Russian leader refused to support a full 30-day ceasefire, Russia launched a series of drone strikes against civilian areas overnight and damaged a hospital in Ukraine. Mr. Trump stated during the call that Putin agreed to immediately halt attacks “on all energy and infrastructure” in Ukraine.
Despite Putin’s alleged agreement with Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Russia’s attacks on his country’s civilian and energy infrastructure had continued. Zelenskyy stated that Moscow’s refusal to halt all strikes demonstrated the need for increased pressure on Moscow to prevent Putin from prolonging the conflict.
“This confirms that we must continue to apply pressure on Russia for the sake of peace,” he said Tuesday night. “Only a real halt to Russia’s attacks on civilian infrastructure can signal a genuine desire to end this war and bring peace closer.”
Mr. Trump and Zelenskyy spoke on the phone for about an hour Wednesday morning, with the US president describing the conversation as “very good.”
“Much of the discussion was based on yesterday’s call with President Putin to align Russia and Ukraine’s requests and needs. “We are very much on track,” he said in a Truth Social post.
The White House described Mr. Trump’s call with Putin as the first step in a “movement to peace” that it hopes will include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and, eventually, a full and permanent end to the fighting.
However, there was no indication that Putin had relaxed his conditions for a potential peace deal, which Kyiv strongly opposes.
According to the Russian government’s readout of the leaders’ phone call, Putin reiterated that a full ceasefire would necessitate the cessation of all military and intelligence support for Kyiv from the United States and its Western allies. The White House did not mention those terms on Tuesday.
“I do not believe that we should make any concessions in terms of assistance for Ukraine, but rather that there should be an increase in assistance for Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday in response to Russia’s seemingly unchanged demands.
Shortly after Mr. Trump and Putin ended their lengthy phone call, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions as residents sought shelter.
Despite efforts to repel the attack, several strikes targeted civilian infrastructure, including a direct drone strike on a hospital in Sumy and attacks on cities in the Donetsk Region. Russian drones were also spotted over Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy.
According to emergency services, the Sumy hospital was damaged and approximately 150 patients were evacuated, but no casualties were reported.
That drone strike was first reported by top Zelenskyy aide Andriy Yermak, who wrote on social media about six hours after Mr. Trump’s call with Putin ended, “Russia is attacking civilian infrastructure and people right now,” referring specifically to the attack on the health facility.
On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of “countering our common (Russian-American) efforts” by attacking Russian infrastructure.
Peskov claimed that in response to the Trump-Putin call, Russia’s military halted its own planned attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including the downing of seven of its own drones. He claimed that Ukraine had time to reverse its own drone attack on Russia, but chose not to.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced earlier Wednesday that its air defenses intercepted 57 Ukrainian drones over the Azov Sea and several Russian regions, including the border provinces of Kursk and Bryansk, as well as the neighboring regions of Oryol and Tula.
Separately, authorities in the Krasnodar region bordering the Crimean Peninsula, which was occupied and then unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014 and is still under Moscow’s control, reported that a drone attack caused a fire at an oil depot.
