Ukraine hit by another night of deadly Russian strikes despite Trump’s ‘Vladimir, STOP!’ plea

Moscow has inflicted another round of deadly strikes on Ukraine despite US President Donald Trump’s plea for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “STOP!” attacking its neighbor.

At least eight people were killed in drone strikes across the country, a night after Russia launched its deadliest bombardment of Ukraine since the middle of last year.

A drone attack on the eastern city of Pavlohrad on Friday killed three people, including a 76-year-old woman and a child, and injured 10 others, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak said.

In southern Ukraine, two people were also killed in strikes on Kherson, the region’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said, adding the strikes targeted critical infrastructure and residential buildings. Two more people died in attacks on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, and one person was killed in Kharkiv in the northeast of the country, regional leaders said.

Ukraine’s capital Kyiv was the main target of Russia’s massive bombardment on Thursday, which hit several locations across the city, killing 12 people and wounding 87 others. Ukraine’s emergency services said on Friday that it had completed the search for survivors in the rubble of one residential block, hit by what Ukrainian authorities said was a North Korean ballistic missile.

The fresh round of attacks come after President Trump vented his frustration over the lack of progress on a peace deal on Thursday, saying he is “not happy” and urging Putin to “STOP!” the attacks, in a post on his Truth Social platform. Hours later, however, Trump said he believed both Russia and Ukraine want peace.

On Friday, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to arrive in Moscow for further talks with Putin on reaching an agreement.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was “ready to reach a deal,” in an interview with CBS News on Thursday, but added that there were still some specific points that needed to be “fine-tuned.”

Earlier this week, Trump launched a new tirade against Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of harming peace negotiations, after Zelensky said it was against his country’s constitution to recognize Russian control of Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Any move to recognize Russia’s control of Crimea would reverse a decade of US policy and could upset the widely held post-World War Two consensus that international borders should not be changed by force.

As part of its mission to seal a peace deal to end the three-year war, the US administration has proposed recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, a move which diplomatic sources have told CNN has highly alarmed US allies in Europe.

The spat over Crimea is the latest in a series of very public disagreements between Trump and Zelensky.

Trump has insisted he has been equally as tough on Putin, but got defensive on Thursday when asked by White House reporters what concessions Russia had made in the conflict.

“Stopping the war, stopping taking the whole country. Pretty big concession,” Trump said.

“We’re putting a lot of pressure on Russia, and Russia knows that, and some people that are close to it know or he wouldn’t be talking right now.”