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Russia has fired scores of missiles and drones at targets across Ukraine, flattening a residential house in the capital, two days before the fourth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Kremlin had launched 297 drones and nearly 50 missiles on Sunday, in the latest in a wave of overnight strikes. He said “a significant proportion” had been shot down as he called on allies to strengthen the country’s air defences against enemy attacks.
The Ukrainian president said: “Moscow continues to invest in strikes more than in diplomacy. This time, Russian targets included not only energy facilities, but also logistics, in particular railway and municipal water supply infrastructure.”
The Kremlin has systematically targeted Ukraine’s energy grid, leaving more than half a million people in Kyiv without power. Other cities have been battered repeatedly, including Odesa and Kharkiv; while temperatures have fallen to as low as -22C (-7.6F) in the coldest winter for years.
Zelenskyy said there had been no let-up in Russia’s aerial bombardment, despite talks brokered by the US with Russia that took place in Geneva last week. The Kremlin wants Ukraine to cede territory in the eastern Donbas region its forces have been unable to conquer – a non-starter for Kyiv.
The intense barrage came amid escalating tensions between Ukraine and neighbouring Slovakia and Hungary. Budapest is threatening to block a new package of European Union sanctions; while Bratislava says it will shut off electricity supplies to Ukraine on Monday.
Both are demanding the resumption of Russian oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline, which crosses Ukrainian territory. Kyiv says a Russian drone attack in January damaged the pipeline that supplies oil to central Europe.
EU foreign ministers are set to meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss the bloc’s 20th round of sanctions against Moscow, a measure they hope will be approved in time to coincide with Tuesday’s fourth anniversary of the invasion.
Hungary’s pro-Russian government claims Zelenskyy is stalling repairs. In a video posted on social media, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said: “Until the Ukrainians resume oil shipments to Hungary, we will not allow decisions that are important to them to be approved.”
Writing on X, Robert Fico, Slovakia’s Moscow-friendly prime minister, accused Zelenskyy of “behaving maliciously”. The oil flow stoppages had “caused us further losses and logistical difficulties”, Fico said. Unless deliveries resumed by Monday, Slovakia would stop emergency power supplies to Ukraine, he added.
The latest Russian strikes killed one man and wounded a dozen more people, including four children, Ukraine’s national police said. A missile demolished a private two-storey house in the Kyiv suburb of Sofiivska Borshchahivka. Rescuers sifted through debris on Sunday, as firefighters hosed down the area.
Yana Terleieva, 44, said she woke to the sound of rockets whistling, alarms blaring and a loud explosion. The medic said: “We realised a rocket had landed nearby. Later we saw the house next to us, where ordinary people lived, had been completely destroyed. There are no military facilities here.”
She added: “Russia is a terrorist country that will not stop. We have seen how, for four consecutive years, and more than 11 years in total, Russia has been attacking a peaceful population. Ukrainians want to be independent and free. We are a good nation, we are resisting, but we can’t withstand this war alone.”
In the western city of Lviv, officials said they were treating a large explosion on Sunday as a terrorist incident. The blast ripped through a central shopping street around midnight, close to Lviv’s opera house. A 23-year-old police officer was killed and 25 others were injured, with 14 taken to hospital.
There were unconfirmed reports that a break-in was reported at the store. When police arrived at the scene a bomb was detonated, followed by a second blast shortly afterwards designed to kill emergency responders. Law enforcement agencies have arrested several people.
Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, said: “This is clearly an act of terrorism.” Ukraine’s interior ministry said “there is every reason to believe that the crime was committed on the orders of Russia”.
Despite four years of all-out war, Moscow is no closer to achieving its original objectives in Ukraine, which include the removal of Zelenskyy’s pro-western government. Russia occupies close to a fifth of Ukrainian territory and continues to grind forward, especially in the east, despite losing 1.2 million soldiers, killed or injured.
In an interview on Friday, Zelenskyy told the Agence France-Presse news agency that Ukraine was “definitely not losing”. Victory remained the goal, he said, pointing out that Ukrainian forces had recently clawed back about 116 sq miles (300 sq km) of territory in the southern Zaporizhzhia oblast.
Speaking in Rome on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV described peace in Ukraine as “an urgent necessity”. In his regular Sunday address to a crowd in St Peter’s Square, he said: “Peace cannot be postponed… It must find space in hearts and be translated into responsible decisions.
“I strongly renew my appeal: may the weapons fall silent, may the bombings cease, may a ceasefire be reached without delay, and may dialogue be strengthened to open the way to peace.”
