Russia claimed the lives of three generations from one family, including a baby who was just one year old, as Vladimir Putin executed his retaliation against Ukrainian strikes that had taken down his pivotal bomber planes.
This assault followed shortly after a conversation between Donald Trump and Putin. The US President reported that the Russian leader emphatically assured him that Russia would respond to Ukraine’s weekend drone assaults on four of its airfields.
According to two officials, the US estimates that the attack affected up to 20 Russian aircraft, with about 10 being destroyed. This figure is approximately half of what Zelensky estimated, but it nonetheless served as a significant embarrassment for Moscow.
Putin kept to his word that Russia would hit back, launching devastating strikes on civilians in Chernihiv and Kharkiv, as Ukraine’s President Zelensky warned that the despot ‘feels impunity’ and ‘is showing the middle finger to the entire world’.
At least six people were killed and six more wounded in hospital after last night’s onslaught by Russia in Pryluky, regional governor Viacheslav Chaus said.
According to him, six Shahed-type drones struck residential areas of the eastern city early Thursday morning, causing severe damage to residential buildings.
Among the dead were a woman, 46, her daughter, 26, and grandson, 16 months, who police said were found under rubble.
Hours later, seventeen people were wounded in a Russian drone strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early Thursday, including children, a pregnant woman, and a 93-year-old woman, according to regional authorities.
At around 1.05 am, Shahed-type drones struck two apartment buildings in the city’s Slobidskyi district, causing fires and destroying several private vehicles.
‘By launching attacks while people sleep in their homes, the enemy once again confirms its tactic of insidious terror,’ regional head Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.
One Russian drone hit the 16th floor of a residential building, while another struck the wall of a five-story building.
Among the wounded were children whose ages were given as 13, nine and seven.
Mayor Ihor Terekhov called it ‘targeted terror’ against civilians by the Putin regime.
One woman resident of Kharkiv region said: ‘I am recording this at 2am, I can’t sleep. The night started with a strike of Iskander around 11pm, and then the drones came.
‘I went to the bathroom first, it’s my temporary shelter number one, but then there were six explosions one after another, so I am saying this on the way to the basement.
‘Praying to God I’ll be out alive in the morning.’
Russia also launched a missile strike on a Ukrainian military training camp in Poltava region, leaving a number injured.
The US embassy in Kyiv has warned about the threat of major new Russian airstrikes after Putin told Trump he ‘will have to respond’ to Ukraine’s June 1 drone attacks on Russia – dubbed Operation Spiderweb.
Russian aircraft were damaged but not destroyed in the attack, and will be restored, the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov insisted in an interview with the state news agency TASS.
‘The equipment in question, as was also stated by representatives of the Ministry of Defence, was not destroyed but damaged. It will be restored,’ Ryabkov said.
But US officials described the attack as highly significant, with one of them cautioning that it could drive Moscow to a far more severe negotiating position in the US-brokered talks to end more than three years of war.
Zelensky said he would consider creating private armies which are used by Putin, for example the notorious Wagner military company.
‘I will now start thinking about it after such ultimatums,’ he said.
‘Facts are stubborn things. Since the beginning of this year, the Russian army has carried out strikes on Ukraine using almost 27,700 aerial bombs, almost 11,200 Shaheds and almost 9,000 strike drones of other types, as well as more than 700 missiles, including ballistic ones.
‘This is in less than half a year. This is the pace of Russian strikes, and they have taken this pace in Russia quite deliberately from the first days of a full-scale war.
‘Russia has rebuilt its state, social and economic system in order to be able to kill people in other countries with impunity and on a massive scale.’
After Trump’s phone conversation with Putin, Zelensky said: ‘Many have spoken to Russia at various levels.
‘No talks have led not only to a reliable peace, but even to an end to the war.
‘Unfortunately, Putin feels impunity and, even after all the terrible Russian strikes, he is allegedly preparing some more ‘responses’.’
Calling for new sanctions and pressure, he said: ‘If the world reacts weakly to Putin’s threats, then he perceives this as the world’s readiness to turn a blind eye to his actions.
‘When he does not feel strength and pressure, but feels weakness, he always commits new crimes.
‘He regards such an attitude as tacit permission – permission for new atrocities, new blows, new murders.’
