Russia launched a massive daytime drone barrage over Ukraine on Wednesday, firing at least 800 drones across about 20 regions despite recent public remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump about the possibility of an end to the war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
In a statement on the Telegram messaging app, Zelenskyy said the attack began in midmorning and lasted for hours, with reports of strikes reaching the capital of Kyiv, the western city of Lviv near Poland, and the Black Sea port of Odesa, among other population centers.
Zelenskyy said the barrage killed at least six people and wounded dozens, including children. He warned that Russia’s “obvious goal is to overload air defenses” and cautioned that a cruise and ballistic missile attack could follow the drone barrage as the bombardment stretched into the late afternoon. Zelenskyy also described the attack as “one of the longest, massive Russian attacks against Ukraine.”
The impact of the drone debris was reported across multiple regions. In Kyiv, city officials said debris fell in an open area in the Obolonskyi district without causing casualties, and Mayor Vitali Klitschko said emergency services responded to the scene. Ukrainian officials also said three people were killed in a separate drone attack in the Rivne region west of Kyiv, according to Oleksandr Koval, head of the regional military administration.
Hungary’s response added a wider diplomatic ripple to the strikes. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said his new government has summoned the Russian ambassador over a drone attack near Hungary’s border, a break from the warmer ties under his predecessor Viktor Orban. Magyar told journalists that his government strongly condemned the Russian attack on Transcarpathia and said Foreign Minister Anita Orbán would speak with the ambassador Thursday morning.
Magyar said the foreign minister would ask “when Russia and Vladimir Putin plan to finally end this bloody war,” and Zelenskyy thanked him on X after Magyar’s comments. Zelenskyy linked the need to keep focus on Ukraine to concerns that other conflicts can push the war out of top headlines; in comments earlier, he said every time the war disappears from the top of the news, it encourages Russia to become “even more savage.”
The Ukrainian comments came as both leaders of the world’s two nuclear-armed powers—Putin and Trump—have recently raised the prospect of peace while fighting continues. Trump, speaking Tuesday as he left the White House for a summit in Beijing, said he believes Moscow and Kyiv will soon reach a deal to end fighting and added, “Believe it or not, it’s getting closer.” Putin, in a speech last weekend, said his invasion of Ukraine is possibly “coming to an end.”
Neither Trump nor Putin publicly elaborated on what they saw as the basis for a likely end to the war, and U.S.-led diplomatic efforts over the past year have not produced progress on key issues, including whether Russia would keep Ukrainian land it has seized and what deterrence could prevent future invasions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Moscow’s fundamental terms were unchanged, with Putin insisting that Ukraine pull its troops from four regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022 but has not fully captured.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine would continue pushing for concessions in any talks. In a Wednesday speech in Bucharest, Romania, to representatives of countries on NATO’s eastern flank, he said the country was not giving up on diplomatic efforts and urged support for pressure on Russia alongside negotiations in different formats. He cited sanctions, describing them as working, and also said Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile capabilities and other forms of pressure were working.
Behind the diplomatic discussion, the AP reported that the balance of forces in the war has shifted in recent months, with Ukraine moving from pleading for help to offering expertise on countering attacks through domestically developed drone technology. Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile strikes, the report said, have disrupted energy facilities and manufacturing deep inside Russia, with three regions reporting strikes Wednesday, and Russia’s Defense Ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 286 drones over Russian regions and areas including the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula as well as the Azov Sea and the Black Sea.
On the front lines, the report said the advance of Russia’s larger and better-equipped army has been slowing since October, citing the Institute for the Study of War. The think tank said Russia’s spring offensive has floundered and that Russian forces recorded a net loss of territory last month for the first time since 2024, adding that Ukrainian defensive lines have held and Ukrainian forces have contested the tactical initiative in several areas even as Russia continues to lose large numbers of troops for limited gains.