{"id":267276,"date":"2025-07-16T18:41:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T18:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/267276\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T18:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T18:41:16","slug":"russia-launches-massive-drone-bombardment-on-zelenskys-hometown-ukrainian-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/267276\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia launches \u2018massive\u2019 drone bombardment on Zelensky\u2019s hometown, Ukrainian officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Moscow barreled hundreds of drones toward four key regions in Ukraine overnight, just as lawmakers in Kyiv scrambled to approve additional defense spending against the backdrop of intensified Russian attacks over the past few days.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Kremlin unleashed 400 long-range drones and one missile late Tuesday, according to Ukraine\u2019s Air Force \u2013 in what marked largest onslaught so far this week. Kyiv\u2019s forces intercepted or disabled at least 345 of those drones.\n <\/p>\n

\n Russia\u2019s strikes pelted multiple cities late Tuesday \u2013 including parts of the Odesa region, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s hometown of Kryvyi Rih.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ukrainian troops have struggled to contend with one of the fiercest escalations by Russian forces since the full-scale 2022 invasion, with lawmakers in Kyiv supporting an initial amendment to boost army and defense spending. At the same time, Zelensky enacted a seismic cabinet reshuffle on Monday \u2013 after the US announced a fresh package of weaponry for the war-ravaged country.\n <\/p>\n

\n Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, faced \u201cthe most massive attack \u2026 since the beginning of the war,\u201d said the head of the city\u2019s military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, adding that it involved a ballistic missile and 28 drones. The onslaught sparked several fires and left parts of the city without electricity and water, he added.\n <\/p>\n

\n Zelensky said Russia had targeted energy infrastructure in the city and that 15 people had been wounded there.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cRussia is not changing its strategy \u2013 and to counter this terror effectively, we need to systematically strengthen our defenses: more air defense systems, more interceptors, and more determination,\u201d Zelensky said in a post on X.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of the eastern city of Kharkiv, said his city was struck 16 times in just 14 minutes during the assault.\n <\/p>\n

\n In Vinnytsia, southwest of Kyiv, eight people were injured and two infrastructure facilities caught fire during attacks.\n <\/p>\n

\n Zelensky said response efforts are still underway in some of the regions targeted overnight.\n <\/p>\n

\n Three deaths were recorded in Ukraine \u2013 one from shelling in the Sumy region and two in Kharkiv \u2013 over the previous 24 hours, with 38 people wounded, according to officials.\n <\/p>\n

\n The next day, members of parliament voted to spend an additional 400 billion Ukrainian hryvnia ($9.6 million) on security forces, according to the former Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Separately, politicians also approved increased funding for defense equipment and machinery.\n <\/p>\n

\n Russia\u2019s latest large-scale wave of attacks on Ukraine comes days after a policy shift from the US administration, and as President Donald Trump grows increasingly frustrated with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump announced<\/a> on Monday that Ukraine will receive Patriot missile systems via NATO as part of a new package of US weaponry, and threatened \u201csecondary tariffs\u201d on other countries that buy Russian oil, signaling an economically punitive stance towards Moscow.\n <\/p>\n

\n Moscow is monitoring those Western long-range missile deliveries \u201cvery closely,\u201d according to Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov. He had warned earlier that Trump\u2019s threat of sanctions was \u201cvery serious,\u201d claiming that the US president addressed his Russian counterpart \u201cpersonally\u201d in his announcement.\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked about the decision of US President Donald Trump to sell NATO weapons for further shipment to Ukraine, Peskov said: \u201cThis is business. There were deliveries before. No one stopped them. It\u2019s just a question of who pays for them. Now, some Europeans will pay for them.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Just on Tuesday, he warned that \u201csuch decisions, which are made in Washington, and in NATO countries, and directly in Brussels, are perceived by the Ukrainian side not as a signal for peace, but as a signal to continue the conflict.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Smoke<\/p>\n

\n Once complimentary of Putin, Trump appeared angry that his overtures on ending the war have been mostly ignored in Moscow.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMy conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,\u201d Trump said, even as he denied falling into a trap set for his predecessors: \u201cHe fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden \u2013 he didn\u2019t fool me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Meanwhile, a number of European foreign ministers welcomed Trump\u2019s Monday announcement.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn order to have peace, we need to support Ukraine, and we need to put the pressure on Russia,\u201d Kaja Kallas, the EU\u2019s foreign affairs chief, said as she arrived at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI also hope that Americans will move also with their sanctions package or tariffs, so that pressure is on Russia to really stop this war,\u201d Kallas added.\n <\/p>\n

\n This story has been updated with additional developments.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Moscow barreled hundreds of drones toward four key regions in Ukraine overnight, just as lawmakers in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-267276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114864382515346418","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267276","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=267276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}