WATCH | Ukraine faces massive aerial assault overnight, days after EU-UK sanctions on Russia

In a renewed overnight offensive following the 17th EU sanctions on Russia, Ukraine's capital city saw as many as 250 drone attacks and 14 ballistic missile attacks that damaged several apartment buildings. 

15 people have been reported injured so far, as a result of these aerial attacks alone—one of the biggest combined attacks since the conflict between the two nations escalated in 2022. 

Calling it a “difficult night for all of Ukraine”, Kyiv President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for tougher sanctions on Moscow—likely referring to the 18th European Union-United Kingdom sanctions package—to pressure it into agreeing to a ceasefire. 

Zelenskyy's X post also shows a video of the abject destruction across as many as six districts of the Ukrainian capital (as per government officials), with firefighters rescuing injured people from fire-ravaged buildings. 

“All strikes targeted civilians,” he lamented.

Officials even added that two out of the 15 injured were children.

These attacks come in the face of US President Donald Trump's failure to bring about a ceasefire between the two nations by having them engage in face-to-face peace negotiations. 

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However, despite the failure of those attempts, Trump has pushed back against the EU's spirited calls to join it in pressurising Russia with the bloc's 18th sanctions package: a long way away from the time he promised “bone-crushing” sanctions on Moscow.

This indicates a possible withdrawal from the conflict altogether that America had hinted at, during the peace talks in Paris last month.

Halyna Tatarchuk, a 63-year-old pensioner, was in her apartment when a drone hit the building. She and her husband had been in the corridor, away from the windows. 

"I'd like Trump to see this," said Halyna Tatarchuk, a 63-year-old pensioner who had been in her apartment when a drone hit her building, as per a Reuters report. 

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"What's he doing? Can he really not see this? ... It's the destruction of a people, they (the Russian military) are just destroying us!”

Russian negotiators have stated that they were preparing a memorandum to prepare for the next round of peace talks with Ukraine. No date has been agreed for the same.

"Russia still has not sent its 'peace memorandum'. Instead, it is sending deadly drones and missiles at civilians," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote in a post on Telegram.

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