Kyiv, Ukraine
CNN
—
Russian missiles killed 11 people overnight in strikes on Ukraine’s eastern city of Dobropillia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday, saying such attacks “prove that Russia’s goals are unchanged.”
The attacks come as the Ukrainian war is at a critical point, with the United States having halted military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv as part of efforts to pressure it into accepting a peace agreement. The move has left Ukraine even more vulnerable to Russian attacks.
On Friday, after threatening Russia with sanctions to force through a ceasefire, US President Donald Trump said that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was “doing what anybody else would do” in taking advantage of the current battlefield dynamics.
In addition to those killed, the latest strikes injured more than 30 others, Zelensky said, including five children.
Authorities said that more people could be trapped under the rubble, with at least eight residential buildings in the area damaged in the attack.
The Ukrainian president described the strikes as “a vile and inhumane tactic of intimidation that Russians often use.”
“Therefore, it is crucial to continue to do everything to protect lives, strengthen our air defense, and increase sanctions against Russia,” Zelensky said, adding that “everything that helps Putin finance the war must break.”
Zelensky has said he will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia next week ahead of negotiations between Kyiv and Washington. After that, his team will stay in Saudi Arabia “to work with our American partners,” he added.
Local officials said on Saturday that over the past day, Russian attacks had killed at least 23 people and injured more than 50 in eastern and southern Ukraine.
In addition to those killed in Dobropillia, Russian attacks elsewhere in Donetsk killed nine others and wounded 13, according to local authorities.
Ukraine’s emergency service said that a drone attack in the eastern Kharkiv region also killed three people and injured seven, while five people were injured in attacks on the southern Kherson region, according to local officials.
Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 79 out of 145 drones launched by Russia overnight, while 54 drones did not reach their target.
Russia also used at least three missiles in its attack, the air force said, adding that it shot down at least one of the projectiles.
The attacks came just days after a deadly Russian airstrike on Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Zelensky.
Under pressure in Kursk
Meanwhile, Ukraine is under severe pressure in the Russian region of Kursk and may soon lose a key logistical support route to its forces, according to Ukrainian and Russian military bloggers, after the arrival of fresh North Korean troops bolstered Russia’s offensive operations inside its own borders.
Ukraine launched a shock incursion into Kursk in August – the first ground invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II – in the hope that it could divert Russian troops from eastern Ukraine and improve its hand ahead of potential ceasefire negotiations.
Although the invasion may have slowed Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, Kyiv has since lost about half of the territory it once occupied in Kursk. Moscow has called in foreign reinforcements and deployed some 12,000 North Korean troops to the region, according to Ukrainian officials and Western intelligence reports.
This week, military bloggers from both countries have warned that Ukraine’s hold on the territory is more tenuous than at any point since it launched the incursion, with Moscow’s forces entering Ukraine’s Sumy region and threatening to cut off Kyiv’s troops in Kursk.