{"id":134327,"date":"2025-05-26T22:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T22:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/134327\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T22:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T22:17:09","slug":"ukraine-says-russia-launched-its-biggest-drone-attack-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/134327\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine says Russia launched its biggest drone attack yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 Russia launched its biggest drone attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Monday, part of an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the 3-year-old war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the third straight night of significant aerial bombardments, U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out at Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying he had gone \u201ccrazy\u201d by stepping up attacks on Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The expansion of Russia\u2019s air campaign appeared to be another setback U.S.-led peace efforts, as Putin looks determined to capture more Ukrainian territory and inflict more damage. It comes after Kyiv accepted an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in March that was proposed by the U.S. but that Moscow effectively rejected.<\/p>\n

This month alone, Russia has broken its record for aerial bombardments of Ukraine three times. <\/p>\n

Russia is also still pushing along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where it has made slow and costly progress, and is assembling its forces for a summer offensive, analysts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly a sense of complete impunity can allow Russia to carry out such attacks and continually escalate their scale,\u201d Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram on Monday. \u201cThere is no significant military logic to this, but there is considerable political meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spate of large bombardments<\/p>\n

The Russian bombardment on Sunday night included 355 drones, Yuriy Ihnat, head of the Ukrainian air force\u2019s communications department, told The Associated Press, calling it the biggest of the war.<\/p>\n

The previous night, Russia fired 298 drones and 69 missiles in what Ukrainian officials said was the largest combined aerial assault of the conflict. From Friday to Sunday, Russia launched around 900 drones at Ukraine, officials said.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said Monday that its forces shot down 103 Ukrainian drones overnight that were flying over southern and western Russia, including near Moscow. Russia\u2019s Federal Air Transport Agency said 32 flights scheduled to land at three Moscow airports on Sunday and Monday had to divert amid Ukrainian drone attacks.<\/p>\n

The numbers from Ukraine and Russia could not be independently verified.<\/p>\n

Soon after Russia\u2019s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, the conflict became a testing ground<\/a> for increasingly sophisticated drone warfare. Drones are generally cheaper to produce than missiles.<\/p>\n

Russia has received Iranian-made Shahed drones since 2022 and is now believed to be manufacturing its own version. Ukraine, as well as receiving smaller battlefield drones from its allies to help it compensate for a troop shortage, has developed its own long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday<\/a> that there are \u201cno longer any range restrictions for weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine \u2014 neither by the British, nor by the French or by us, and not by the Americans either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means Ukraine can also defend itself by, for example, attacking military positions in Russia. Until a while ago, it couldn\u2019t \u2026 it can now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was not clear if Merz was referring to the easing of restrictions<\/a> on longer-range weapons late last year. Before becoming chancellor, Merz called for Germany to supply Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Kyiv, something his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, refused to do.<\/p>\n

Commenting on Merz\u2019s statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a decision to lift range restrictions was \u201cquite dangerous\u201d and \u201ccontrary to our efforts to reach a political settlement.\u201d <\/p>\n

Europeans threaten sanctions<\/p>\n

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the latest Russian bombardments \u201cshow the extent to which President Putin has lied to the Europeans and to the Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told reporters while on a visit to Vietnam that Ukraine\u2019s allies should, with U.S. support, set Putin a deadline \u201cso that finally everyone can understand that he is lying and that beyond this deadline, massive retaliation is carried out, in particular in terms of sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European Union\u2019s top diplomat, foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, also said the bloc intended to impose more sanctions on Moscow, calling Russia\u2019s latest attacks as \u201ctotally appalling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has threatened massive sanctions, too, but so far hasn\u2019t taken action. But he made it clear Sunday night that he is losing patience with Putin. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!\u201d Trump wrote in a social media post.<\/p>\n

Trump said Putin is \u201cneedlessly killing a lot of people,\u201d pointing out that \u201cmissiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. president also expressed frustration with Zelenskyy, saying that he is \u201cdoing his Country no favors by talking the way he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said Putin makes decisions that are necessary to ensure Russia\u2019s security and that the attacks were Moscow\u2019s response to a series of deep strikes by Ukraine.<\/p>\n

He said negotiations are at \u201ca decisive moment that is linked to emotional overloading for everyone and emotional reactions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds more prisoners<\/a> Sunday in the third and last part of a major exchange. All told, each side released more than 1,000 prisoners \u2014 soldiers and civilians \u2014 in the biggest swap of the war.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels, John Leicester in Paris and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/russia-ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 Russia launched its biggest drone attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Monday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[7667,32,34,1945,4179,8615,2596,7337,332,7659,7661,657,7662,333,2601,263,59040],"class_list":{"0":"post-134327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-dmitry-peskov","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-emmanuel-macron","11":"tag-friedrich-merz","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-international-news","14":"tag-kaja-kallas","15":"tag-olaf-scholz","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-russia-government","18":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-ukraine-government","21":"tag-vladimir-putin","22":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-yuriy-ihnat"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114576454106878203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}