Russian forces launched more than 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine in a large-scale聽attack that mainly targeted the west of the country and caused power outages, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.
AFP journalists in Kyiv heard explosions ringing out over the capital and air defence systems targeting Russian drones during the attack, which coincided with Vladimir Putin鈥檚 visit to China.
The barrage also came as UK defence secretary John Healey arrived in Ukraine for talks on security cooperation, according to his Ukrainian counterpart.
The head of the northern Chernigiv region, Vyacheslav Chaus, said 30,000 people were left without electricity after drone strikes on 鈥榗ivilian infrastructure鈥�.
Ukraine鈥檚 air force said Moscow had fired 502 drones and 24 missiles, while regional officials in the west of the country said several people were wounded and residential homes and civilian infrastructure were damaged.
鈥楾hree missiles and 69 strike drones hit in 14 locations, and the debris of downed projectiles fell in 14 locations,鈥� the air force added.
Officials in the Kirovograd region said four railway workers were wounded in the attack and that more than a dozen residential building were damaged.
Russia has fired almost nightly aerial drone and missile attacks on Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, sparking the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
Meanwhile, Russia is still seeking international recognition that parts of Ukraine annexed and occupied by its forces belong to Moscow as part of any peace deal, its foreign minister said in remarks published Wednesday.
Ukraine has said it will never accept Russian control over any of its territory and has vowed to recover land seized by Moscow.
Russia claims to have annexed five Ukrainian regions 鈥� Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as well as the Crimean peninsula, which it seized in 2014.
鈥業n order for a durable peace, the new territorial realities that arose must be recognised and formalised in accordance with international law,鈥� Russia鈥檚 foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published by Moscow on Wednesday.
Who gets control of land captured by Russia in its offensive is a key sticking point in stalled peace talks between the two sides.
Ukraine wants a ceasefire first before discussing territory, but Russia has refused to halt its offensive until a full deal is reached.
Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Sybiga said in response that Russia was responding to peace efforts led by US president Donald Trump with 鈥榦ld ultimatums鈥�.
鈥楻ussia has not changed its aggressive goals and shows no signs of readiness for meaningful negotiations,鈥� he said, adding: 鈥業t鈥檚 time to hit the Russian war machine with severe new sanctions and sober Moscow up.鈥�
Turkey, which has hosted three rounds of direct Russia-Ukraine talks, said last week that Russian president Vladimir Putin had offered to freeze the front lines in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions if Ukraine completely gave up the Donetsk region.
Russia already has almost total control over the Lugansk region and controls around 80 per cent of Donetsk, AFP analysis of Institute for the Study of War data shows.
It has also captured large swathes of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, though Ukraine still controls the regional capitals.
Ukraine鈥檚 industrial east has been decimated by more than a decade of fighting that erupted when armed Russian-backed separatists began a push to break away from Kyiv following the country鈥檚 pro-European revolution in 2014.
