Russian forces launch nearly 150 drones against Ukraine

Russia launched a sweeping drone assault and airstrikes across Ukraine early on Sunday, killing at least four people, officials said, after US President Donald Trump cast doubt over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to end the war.

Three people died and four were wounded in airstrikes on Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the regional prosecutor’s office said.

Another person died and a 14-year-old girl was wounded in a drone attack on the city of Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which was hit for the third consecutive night, Gov. Serhii Lysak said.

The attacks came hours after Russia claimed to have regained control over the remaining parts of the Kursk region that Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise incursion in August 2024. Ukrainian officials said the fighting in Kursk was still ongoing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin telephoned his top commanders in Kursk to congratulate them on “victory” and the end of the operation to expel Ukrainian forces from the region in western Russia, Russian news agencies quoted the Kremlin as saying on Sunday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, writing about front-line operations on Sunday, said Ukrainian forces remained active in Kursk and in Russia’s neighbouring Belgorod region.

Trump said on Saturday he doubts Putin wants to end the more than 3-year-old war, expressing new skepticism a peace deal can be reached soon.

Only a day earlier, Trump had said Ukraine and Russia were “ very close to a deal.”

“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump wrote in a social media post as he flew back to the US after attending the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican, where he met briefly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump also hinted at further sanctions against Russia.

The Trump-Zelensky conversation was the first face-to-face encounter between the two leaders since their heated Oval Office meeting at the White House on Feb.28.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday the coming week would be “very critical,” and that the US would need to “make a determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in.”

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about possible concessions to Russia, Rubio emphasized the need to be “grownups and realistic.”

“There is no military solution to this war. The only solution to this war is a negotiated settlement where both sides are going to have to give up something they claim to want and are going to have to give the other side something they wish they didn’t,” he said.

Russia fired 149 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks, the Ukrainian air force said, adding that 57 were intercepted and another 67 jammed.

One person was wounded in drone attacks on the Odesa region and one other was hurt in the city of Zhytomyr. Four people were also wounded in a Russian airstrike on the city of Kherson on Sunday, local officials said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said air defences shot down five Ukrainian drones in the border region of Bryansk, as well as three drones over the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Five people were wounded when Ukrainian forces shelled the city of Horlivka in the partially occupied Donetsk region, said the Russian-installed Mayor Ivan Prikhodko.

Meanwhile, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that Ukraine should not agree to Trump’s latest proposal that it cede swathes of territory in return for a ceasefire with Russia as it would be akin to a “capitulation.”

Kyiv obviously knows it might need to part with some territory to reach a sustainable ceasefire that is agreed in good faith, Pistorius told German public broadcaster ARD.

“But they will certainly not go as far - or should not go as far - as the latest proposal by the American president,” said Pistorius, who is likely to remain defence minister in the new German coalition government.

Agencies