Russian forces launched a massive nighttime drone and missile assault across eight Ukrainian regions, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, wounding more than two dozen civilians, including three children. Zelenskyy said the strike involved 524 attack drones and 22 ballistic and cruise missiles, with the city of Dnipro and the surrounding central region taking heavy damage. The barrage continues an escalation of long-range strikes that intensified after a May 9-11 ceasefire that US President Donald Trump said he asked Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to observe, though the pause had little effect and there are no signs a peace deal is emerging despite US diplomatic efforts. In recent days Russia flattened a Kyiv apartment building that killed 24 people, and Ukraine conducted one of its largest drone strikes on Russia, which authorities said killed at least four people, including three near Moscow, and wounded about a dozen. Over more than four years of war, Ukraine has been building longer-range capabilities and striking deep targets inside Russia, including oil facilities, prompting increased domestic pressure on the Kremlin. The Russian Defence Ministry said more than 1,000 Ukrainian drones had been shot down or jammed in the previous 24 hours and that roughly 80 were heading toward Moscow. Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced that Ukraine has developed its first glide bomb, carrying a 250-kilogram (550-pound) warhead, intended to hit fortifications, command posts and other targets dozens of kilometres behind the front line, and that pilots are training with the weapon under combat conditions. Zelenskyy said these long-range capabilities are changing the battlefield and global perceptions of the war, and that many partners now recognise the reachability of targets on Russian territory. Moscow said its forces had struck weapons factories, oil and energy facilities, and transport and port infrastructure used by Ukrainian forces, declaring the overnight operation successful. Separately, the Ukrainian navy said a Russian drone hit a Chinese-owned dry cargo ship, the KSL Deyang, near Odesa; the vessel sails under a Marshall Islands flag and its owner is based in China, and there was no immediate word on casualties or the extent of damage. In other developments, Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court said bail for Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s former chief of staff, has been paid in full after it was set at 140 million hryvnias (about 3.2 million US dollars). Yermak was named as a suspect by two anti-corruption watchdogs in a major graft probe, a step short of formal charges, and investigators say Zelenskyy is not under suspicion.
