Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns that Kyiv faces deficit of missiles while Washington focused on its war on Iran.

Russia has carried out one of the largest aerial attacks since the start of its war on Ukraine, launching 948 drones in a 24-hour period as it moved troops and equipment to the front line in what appeared to be the start of its new offensive.

Tuesday’s rare daytime attacks killed two people in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk and one person in the region of Vinnytsia, according to regional authorities.

In Lviv, footage posted online showed a drone crashing into an old building next to a church in the historic centre. Lviv’s Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site around the 17th-century St Andrew’s Church had been damaged.

“Russia is attacking a crowded city centre in broad daylight,” Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on X.

Overnight attacks

The strikes followed an overnight bombardment across 11 regions that killed five people, including two in the Poltava region, and one each in the regions of Zaporizhia, Kherson and Kharkiv.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a new appeal for allies to supply Kyiv with air defence munitions, warning that Kyiv, which relies on the US for air defence systems against ballistic missiles, will face a deficit of missiles while Washington is focused on the US-Israeli war on Iran.

“It’s important to continue supporting Ukraine. It’s important that all agreements on air defence are implemented on time,” he said on X.

Reporting on talks between Ukraine and the US that opened in the US state of Florida on Saturday, Zelenskyy said that a security guarantees agreement that Kyiv has long sought from Washington had not yet been developed.

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The Ukrainian president had said in January that the document, which would ensure the US and other allies would come to Ukraine’s aid should Russia attack again after the end of the war, was “100 percent ready” and waiting to be signed.

“The most important task is to develop security guarantees in a way that brings us closer to ending the war,” Zelenskyy wrote on X after a debrief with his negotiating team, adding that the “geopolitical situation has become more complicated” due to the war on Iran.

New offensive under way

In parallel, fighting continued in eastern Ukraine, with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think tank, reporting that Russia had moved heavy equipment and more troops to the front line.

General Oleksandr Syrskii, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said Russian troops had in recent days made simultaneous attempts to break through defensive lines in several strategic areas.

“Fierce fighting unfolded along the entire line of contact,” Syrskii said Monday on Telegram, reporting that Russia had launched 619 attacks in four days and that Ukraine had deployed reinforcements to counter the assaults.

The Washington-based ISW said Syrskii’s report backed up its assessment that Russia’s new offensive is under way.

Russia, which occupies about 20 per cent of Ukraine, has moved its grinding war of attrition up a gear every year in spring, when snow melts and weather conditions for the troops improve.

However, it has been unable to capture cities and has made only incremental gains across rural areas.