Moscow,Ā June 6: At least five people, including a one-year-old child, his mother and grandmother, were killed on Thursday in a nighttime Russian drone strike that hit the northern Ukrainian city of Pryluky, officials said.
Six drones hit a residential area in the city at 5.30 am local time, according to authorities. The child killed was the grandson of an emergency responder, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
“One of the rescuers arrived to respond to the aftermath right at his own home,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram. “It turned out that a Shahed drone hit his house.”
The attack came just hours after Donald Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Trump, Putin said “very strongly” that Russia will retaliate for Ukraine’s weekend stunning drone attacks on Russian military airfields.
Drones struck across regions
Six people were wounded in the Pryluky attack and are in hospital, officials said.
Pryluky, which had a pre-war population of around 50,000 people, lies about 100 kilometres east of Kyiv, the capital. The city is far from the frontline and does not contain any known military assets.
Zelenskyy said a total of 103 drones and one ballistic missile targeted multiple Ukrainian regions overnight, including Donetsk, Kharkiv, Odesa, Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipro and Kherson.
“This is another massive strike,” Zelenskyy said. “It is yet another reason to impose the strongest possible sanctions and apply pressure collectively.”
US peace effort remains stalled
Zelenskyy, who has accepted a US ceasefire proposal and offered to meet with Putin in an attempt to break the stalemate in negotiations, wants more international sanctions on Russia to force it to accept a settlement. Putin has shown no willingness to meet with Zelenskyy, however, and has indicated no readiness to compromise.
US-led diplomatic efforts to stop the more than three-year-long war have delivered no significant progress, and the grinding war of attrition has continued unabated.
Germany’s new leader Friedrich Merz was due to meet with President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday as he works to keep the US on board with Western diplomatic and military support for Ukraine.
Ukraine’s top presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, met with senior American officials in Washington on Wednesday and called for greater US pressure on Russia, accusing the Kremlin of deliberately stalling ceasefire talks and blocking progress toward peace, according to a statement on the presidential website.
Yermak, who travelled to the US as part of a Ukrainian delegation, met with senior American officials to bolster support for Ukraine’s defence and humanitarian priorities. He said Ukraine urgently needs stronger air defence capabilities.
Hours later, 17 people were injured in a Russian drone strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Those hurt included children, a pregnant woman, and a 93-year-old woman, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.
At around 1.05 am, Shahed-type drones struck two apartment buildings in the city’s Slobidskyi district, causing fires and destroying several private vehicles.
“By launching attacks while people sleep in their homes, the enemy once again confirms its tactic of insidious terror,” Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.