KYIV — An overnight Russian attack that rocked the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk and left hundreds of customers in the Poltava region without power shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want peace, regional Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
During a summit at the White House, US President Donald Trump told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday that the United States would help guarantee Ukraine’s security in any deal to end Russia’s war there.
After the meeting, Trump called the Russian leader and began arranging a meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy.
“At the very same time when Putin was assuring Trump over the phone that he seeks peace, and when President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was holding talks at the White House with European leaders about a just peace, Putin’s army launched yet another massive attack on Kremenchuk,” Vitalii Maletskyi, mayor of the city that lies in the Poltava region, said on the Telegram messaging application.
Maletskyi added that tens of blasts shook the city.
“Once again, the world has seen that Putin does not want peace — he wants to destroy Ukraine.”
The scale of the attack was not clear. Ukraine’s Air Force said overnight that the central Ukrainian region was under the threat of a cruise missile attack.
Poltava Governor Volodymyr Kohut said that the attack damaged administrative buildings of a local power infrastructure operation.
“Fortunately, there were no casualties,” Kohut said on Telegram.
He said that in the Lubny district nearly 1,500 residential and 119 commercial customers were left without power.
There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both sides have been targeting infrastructure key to the military in their strikes during the war on each other’s territory, including energy infrastructure.
Russia said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s overnight drone attack sparked fires at an oil refinery and a hospital roof in the Volgograd region.
Russia launched 270 drones in overnight attack
Ukraine’s air force said on Tuesday that Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles overnight in one of its largest attacks this month.
The air force said it downed 230 drones and six missiles. It recorded strikes at 16 locations with four missiles and 40 drones.
