Russian airstrikes on Kyiv kill 18 as Putin snubs US on war

Olesia Safronova and Aliaksandr Kudrytski, Bloomberg News on Aug 28, 2025

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Russia unleashed a wave of drone and missile strikes on Kyiv, in defiance of U.S. calls for an end to the fighting, as Ukraine and its allies kept up efforts to obtain future security guarantees for the war-torn nation.

The Russian attack killed 18 people, including four children, and injured at least 48, Ukrainian authorities said. More bodies are potentially still buried under the rubble, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

“Russia chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table,” Zelenskyy said in a post on the X platform on Thursday.

Ukrainian air defense said Russia fired nearly 600 drones, two Kinzhal and nine Iskander-M missiles and 20 Kha-101 cruise missiles in strikes across the country overnight. It said 563 drones and 26 of the missiles were shot down.

The assault was the second largest this year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Ukrainian Air Force data. It came almost two weeks after President Donald Trump abandoned U.S. demands for Russia to agree to a ceasefire to allow for peace talks at his summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

Trump held back from imposing sanctions on Russia after U.S. officials claimed Putin agreed at the summit to accept security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace deal, though there has been no sign of progress on an agreement so far. Ukraine is seeking the guarantees from its allies including the U.S. to ensure any accord with Russia is lasting.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she spoke with Zelenskyy and then with Trump following the attack on Kyiv. “Putin must come to the negotiating table,” she said in a post on X, adding that Ukraine must have “firm and credible security guarantees” in any peace deal.

Putin is continuing to press maximalist demands for Ukraine to surrender territory, including areas that Russian troops don’t occupy. He has so far ignored Trump’s call for Putin to hold direct talks with Zelenskyy as the next stage of the negotiating process.

Trump warned Tuesday of “an economic war” if he can’t secure an end to the fighting, saying he had “very serious” consequences in mind. “It’s going to be bad for Russia, and I don’t want that,” he said.

Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, commented on the attack on X, posting a picture of a damaged house.

The European Union delegation in Kyiv was damaged in the strikes, the bloc’s enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said on X. “I strongly condemn these brutal attacks, a clear sign that Russia rejects peace & chooses terror,” said Kos, whose remit includes Ukraine’s E.U. membership process.

The British Council building in Kyiv was also damaged, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a post on X. “Putin is killing children and civilians, and sabotaging hopes of peace,” he said.

E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said her office was summoning the Russian envoy in Brussels in response. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said London had also summoned Russia’s ambassador.

The threat to Europe from Russian forces is real and “they are testing our defense readiness and defense capability,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters during a visit to naval facilities on the Baltic coast. “In the coming months and years, we will do everything we can to protect the freedom, peace, and territorial integrity” of the NATO alliance, he said.

Ukraine said Thursday it hit two more Russian oil refineries, after stepping up attacks on the country’s energy sector over the past month. The Kuibyshev refinery in Russia’s Samara region and the Afipsky refinery in the southern Krasnodar region were successfully targeted, Robert Brovdi, chief of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, said on Telegram.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted 102 Ukrainian drones overnight in a post on Telegram.

Senior Ukrainian officials including Yermak are expected to travel to the U.S. on Friday to exchange ideas on post-war security architecture with members of the Trump administration. They visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia earlier this week and were in Switzerland on Thursday.

Emergency services and rescue teams were carrying out recovery work at locations across Kyiv, where residential areas and civilian infrastructure were damaged by direct strikes as well as falling debris, city authorities said on Telegram.

Other Ukrainian regions also came under attack. The strikes damaged energy facilities in several locations, national power grid operator Ukrenergo said on Telegram without elaborating.

Damage to energy facilities in the central Vinnytsia region left some 60,000 households without power, regional Governor Natalia Zabolotna said on Telegram.

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—With assistance from Andrea Palasciano and Iain Rogers.