Russia launched 85 attack drones and a ballistic missile at Ukraine overnight, Kyiv said Saturday, hours after Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump held their meeting in Alaska.
The highly anticipated meeting in the remote US state ended with no breakthrough in halting Russia’s more than three-year-long Ukraine invasion.
Ukraine’s air force said Moscow “attacked with an Iskander-M ballistic missile and 85 Shahed-type” drones, while also attacking “frontline areas” in four regions.
In its daily report, the air force said the attacks took place “on the night of 16 August” and started in the evening of 15 August — when Putin and Trump held their talks.
Kyiv said its air defenses shot down 61 of the drones.
The Trump-Putin summit ended with no ceasefire announcement, despite the West pressing the Kremlin for months to commit to a halt in the fighting.
Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky has not yet publicly reacted to the talks.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched by Putin in February 2022, has killed thousands.
Ukraine fights back
Ukraine has retaken six villages Moscow captured in a recent push, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Friday, after Russia made a swift advance in the east ahead of the Putin-Trump summit.
On Tuesday, Russia made a swift push to the town of Dobropillia, piercing through Ukraine’s defenses ahead of Friday’s summit in Alaska between US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin aimed at resolving the war.
“The advance of the enemy was stopped by the forces of the 1st Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine, together with adjacent and subordinate units, over the past three days,” Ukraine’s General Staff said. WITH AFP
It added that six villages in the area were retaken.
The Russian army’s gains on Tuesday were the biggest for a single 24-hour period in over a year, according to an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War.
Ukrainian authorities ordered the evacuation of families with children from Dobropillia in July.
The town, which had a pre-conflict population of around 28,000, is now under constant Russian drone and shell fire.