Russia launched an overnight barrage of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv, officials said Monday, as children were returning to school across Ukraine. Some pupils found classes canceled because of damage from the attack. Several series of explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital, the AP reports. Debris from intercepted missiles and drones fell in every district of Kyiv, wounding three people and damaging two kindergartens, the Interior Ministry said. City authorities reported multiple fires. After more than 900 days of war, Russia and Ukraine show no sign of letting up in the fight or moving closer to the negotiating table.
Both sides are pursuing major ground offensives, with the Ukrainians driving into Russia's Kursk region and the Russians pushing deeper into the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that is part of the industrial Donbas region. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Ukraine's Kursk assault won't prevent Russian forces from advancing in eastern Ukraine. "The main task that the enemy set for themselves—to stop our offensive in Donbas—they haven't achieved it," Putin told students during a trip to Siberia. He predicted that the Kursk offensive will fail and that Kyiv officials will want "to move to peace talks," per the AP.
Speaking in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country's operation in Kursk had drawn Russian troops away from southern Ukraine, but he acknowledged that it had not yet succeeded in diverting Russian forces from the eastern frontlines, where the city of Pokrovsk is at risk of falling. "We see that it is difficult there, and the most combat-ready Russian brigades have been concentrated in this area because it has always been their main target—Donbas. The complete, total occupation of Donbas: Donetsk and Luhansk regions," Zelensky said.
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