May 12 (Reuters) – Russia launched more than 200 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, hours after a U.S.-mediated ceasefire expired, dimming hopes it would be extended.
Ukraine and Russia had agreed to a May 9–11 ceasefire linked to the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, part of a U.S.-led push for peace under President Donald Trump after more than four years of war. Trump said on Friday he hoped the truce would be extended.
Although neither side reported large-scale airstrikes during the ceasefire, both said fighting continued along the front line, accusing each other of drone and artillery attacks.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv had proposed extending the truce, but Moscow instead escalated.
“We proposed Moscow to extend the partial ceasefire beyond May 11th. Instead, this night Russia launched over 200 drones against Ukraine, targeting civilian infrastructure, including a kindergarten, injuring at least six and killing at least one person,” he wrote on X.
Ukraine’s air force said that since 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Monday, Russia had launched 216 drones, of which 192 were downed or neutralised.
“Russia itself chose to end the partial silence that had lasted for several days,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on X.
DAMAGE IN MULTIPLE REGIONS
Zelenskiy said drones were intercepted over several regions but reported damage to energy facilities, apartment buildings, a kindergarten and a civilian locomotive.
In Kyiv, debris from a downed drone fell on the roof of a 16-storey residential building in the northern Obolon district, sparking a fire, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
In the surrounding region, an overnight drone strike set the roof of a kindergarten ablaze and shattered windows in a nearby four-storey residential building, regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk said.
Two people were hurt in the central Cherkasy region. In Zhytomyr region, further west, residential buildings and cars were damaged, while northern Chernihiv region also came under attack, officials said.
Strikes damaged transport infrastructure in the southeastern city of Dnipro, injuring one person, while a woman was wounded in shelling in the southern city of Kherson, local officials said.
Russian drones also hit energy infrastructure in the Mykolaiv region, causing blackouts in settlements in the region, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka. Editing by Daniel Flynn, Mark Potter and Ros Russell)
Comments