Zelenskyy Claims Russia Intentionally Struck US-Owned Factory in Ukraine Attack

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Key Points

An overnight Russian strike on Ukraine has killed one person and wounded 22 others, authorities said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had deliberately targeted a US-owned electronics firm.
He called it a “very telling strike”, suggesting Russia’s interest in US-led peace efforts was not sincere.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that large-scale Russian attacks overnight in various parts of Ukraine showed Moscow was avoiding negotiations about ending the more than three-year-old war.

The offensive included 574 drones and 40 missiles, Zelenskyy said, and was one of the largest of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour, now in its fourth year.

One person was killed and 22 were wounded in the overnight strikes, authorities said.

Many targets were in western Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said a missile strike on a United States-owned electronics firm was a “telling” indicator of Russian intentions in US-led peace initiatives.

Black smoke billowing from a building that has been badly damaged.

An image provided by the Zakarpattia Region Prosecutor’s Office depicts the aftermath of a Russian attack on an industrial complex in western Ukraine. Source: AAP / Zakarpattia Prosecutor’s Office / EPA

“Now the signals from Russia are simply, to be honest, indecent,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

“They are trying to back away from the need to hold meetings. They don’t want to end the war. They carry on with massive strikes.”

Most of the overnight injuries were in an attack on the US-owned Flex electronics manufacturer in Ukraine’s far-west Zakarpattia region, authorities said. Storage facilities there were damaged.

“We believe it was a deliberate strike precisely on US property here in Ukraine, on American investment,” Zelenskyy said.

“A very telling strike … at the very time when the world waits for a clear answer from the Russians on their move in talks to bring an end to the war,” he stated, implying that Russia’s commitment to US-led peace initiatives may not be genuine.

Russia did not comment on Zelenskyy’s claim that its military deliberately hit a US-owned facility, but Moscow denies targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.

In Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, the attack killed one person, wounded three others and damaged 26 homes, said governor Maksym Kozytskyi.

Authorities in south-east Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region reported damage to businesses, homes and gas lines.

The defence ministry in Moscow said it had struck Ukrainian energy and airfield infrastructure as well as military industrial facilities overnight, and captured another frontline village, Oleksandro-Shultyne.

Ukraine said it had hit a Russian oil refinery, a drone warehouse and a fuel base. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.

Zelenskyy urges US to react ‘strongly’ if Russia not ready to make deal

Trump met both Zelenskyy and Putin over the past week in pursuit of a diplomatic end to the fighting, but acknowledged that the Kremlin leader may not want a deal. Zelenskyy urged Trump to react firmly if that was the case.

“If the Russians are not ready, we would like to see a strong reaction from the United States,” he said in comments released on Thursday.

US and European military planners have begun exploring post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine, according to US officials and sources, but the path to peace remained uncertain.

Zelenskyy said the discussions on security guarantees were “every day helping shape what will become the security architecture for Ukraine”.

Chiefs of defence for the US, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Ukraine met in Washington, DC between Tuesday and Thursday.

On Thursday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready for an honest talk about security guarantees for Ukraine and accused Ukraine’s European backers of “adventurism” by excluding Moscow from their discussions.

Thousands of civilians, the vast majority of them Ukrainian, have been killed since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of February 2022.

More than a million Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are estimated to have been killed or wounded.