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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated plans to converse with Donald Trump on Wednesday following continued Russian strikes on Ukraine. This follows reports of Russian President Vladimir Putin agreeing, during a call with the U.S. leader, to suspend attacks on energy infrastructure for 30 days.
Despite this agreement, Russia launched a series of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine on Tuesday night, disrupting the power supply to a Ukrainian railway line just after the conclusion of the conversation between Putin and Trump.
Zelenskyy mentioned that he would be in “contact with President Trump” later in the day to “discuss the details” ahead of the upcoming negotiations between U.S. and Russian delegations scheduled for Sunday in Saudi Arabia.
Speaking at a news conference in Helsinki, Zelenskyy remarked, “Even this night after Putin’s talk with President Trump, when Putin allegedly said he had given the order to stop strikes on the Ukrainian energy targets, 150 drones hit energy infrastructure, transport, unfortunately two hospitals.” He further noted the discrepancy between Putin’s statements and the unfolding reality.
In Kyiv, explosions were heard as the city’s air defenses engaged a swarm of Russian drones, just hours following the Putin-Trump call. Across the country, six Russian missiles and 145 drones caused damage to civilian infrastructure and impacted the energy supply of Ukraine’s state railway network in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The national operator stated that while some sections were without power, train traffic continued as scheduled.
Earlier in the week, Russia had also targeted the same supply line in the eastern Ukrainian region.
In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, a Russian shelling incident on an apartment building resulted in the death of one person and injuries to three others, with a drone also crashing into the roof of a local hospital. Zelenskyy had previously issued warnings about Russia’s military buildup across the border from this region.
On Wednesday morning, Russia’s defense ministry claimed that it had shot down its own drones en route to strike energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Mykolayiv region. This action followed an order from Putin to suspend such strikes, after his call with Trump.
Additionally, an oil facility in Russia’s Krasnodar region caught fire on Wednesday morning, which local media attributed to a Ukrainian drone attack.
“If the Russians would stop hitting our targets we would certainly not be striking their targets,” Zelenskyy stated.
