Russia launches missile attack on Ukraine as Zelensky seeks security guarantees

Russia has launched one of its biggest aerial attacks of the year on Ukraine, firing 574 drones and 40 ballistic and cruise missiles overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

The attack mostly targeted western regions of the country, the air force said, where much of the military aid provided by Ukraine’s western allies is believed to be stored.

The strikes killed at least one person and injured 15 others, according to officials.

It was Russia’s third largest aerial attack this year in terms of the number of drones fired and the eighth-largest in terms of missiles, according to official figures. Most such Russian attacks have hit civilian areas.

The strikes occurred during a renewed US-led effort to reach a peace settlement after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of its neighbour.

US President Donald Trump discussed the war with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week, and at the start of this week hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House.

Russia has fired nearly 1,000 long-range drones and missiles at Ukraine since the White House talks.

Ukraine and European leaders have accused Mr Putin of stalling in peace efforts, including Ukraine’s proposal of a ceasefire and Mr Zelensky’s offer to sit down with the Russian leader. The Kremlin has reacted coolly to those possibilities.

Mr Zelensky condemned the overnight attack, saying it was carried out “as if nothing were changing at all”.

Moscow has shown no sign of pursuing meaningful negotiations to end the war, the Ukrainian leader said as he urged the international community to respond with stronger pressure on Moscow, including tougher sanctions and tariffs.

Ukraine has kept up its own attacks with domestically produced long-range drones on infrastructure inside Russia that supports Moscow’s war effort. It has hit oil refineries and Russian wholesale fuel prices have reached record highs in recent days.

Almost all the overnight missiles were fired from inside Russia. They reached deep into western Ukraine, near the border with Hungary.

Western parts of Ukraine are far from the battlefield’s front line in the east and south of the country, where a grinding war of attrition has killed tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides.

In the western city of Lviv, one person was killed and three were injured as the attack damaged 26 residential buildings, a nursery school and administrative buildings, regional head Maksym Kozytskyi wrote on Telegram.

The Regional Prosecutor’s Office said three Russian cruise missiles with cluster munitions struck the city.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia had struck a “major American electronics manufacturer” in western Ukraine. He provided no further details but Mr Zelensky said the company produces domestic appliances.

On Wednesday, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine will hold intensive meetings to understand what kind of security guarantees its allies are willing to provide.

The details are being hammered out by national security advisers and military officials. The plans will become clearer within 10 days, the Ukrainian leader said, and he then expects to be ready to hold direct talks with Mr Putin for the first time since the full-scale invasion.

The talks could be conducted in a trilateral format alongside Mr Trump, Mr Zelenskyy said.

A venue for the meeting is being discussed, and Switzerland, Austria and Turkey are possibilities, the Ukrainian president added.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that working on security arrangements in Ukraine without Moscow’s involvement was not feasible, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

Mr Zelensky said that in his meeting in the Oval Office on Monday he sought to convince Mr Trump that the battlefield situation was not as bad for Ukraine as Mr Putin portrayed.

He pointed to errors in the US map of the front line which he said showed Russia holding more territory than it actually does.