Russia Bombards Ukraine With One of Largest Air Assaults of the War

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/world/europe/russia-ukraine-kyiv.html

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Russia unleashed one of its largest drone and missile barrages of the war on Ukraine overnight, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens across the country in an hourslong assault that Ukrainian officials said showed Moscow had no interest in a truce.

It was the second large-scale attack in two nights and the third in just a week, part of a broader, recent escalation by Russia that has brought a spike in civilian casualties despite cease-fire negotiations. Ukraine has also stepped up its own air attacks on Russian territory, though on a smaller scale and with far fewer civilian deaths.

The overnight strikes underscored how months of diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire have failed to yield a breakthrough as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has dragged his feet on agreeing to any temporary truce, adding conditions that he knows Ukraine will not accept. And after threatening for weeks to walk away from the negotiations, President Trump now appears to be doing exactly that, telling President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine last week that Russia and Ukraine would have to find a solution to the war themselves.

Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday that Russia had launched 69 ballistic and cruise missiles along with 298 attack drones, adding that about two-thirds of the missiles and nearly all the drones were shot down. The air force spokesman, Yuriy Ihnat, said in an interview that it was the largest bombardment of the war in terms of the number of weapons used. Those numbers could not be independently verified.

It was the latest in a string of recent Russian attacks to involve swarms of more than 250 drones — a number unthinkable at the start of the war but now made possible by mass weapons production.

Attacks involving swarms of drones are often designed to overwhelm the enemy’s air defenses. Ukraine’s are already stretched, and each consecutive attack adds further strain. The latest barrage also hit western and southern regions of Ukraine which, unlike the capital, Kyiv, are poorly protected by air defenses, increasing the likelihood of fatalities.