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MOSCOW: Russia said Tuesday that its massive aerial assaults on Ukraine in recent days were a “response” to escalating Ukrainian drone strikes on its own civilians, accusing Kyiv of trying to “disrupt” peace efforts.
Moscow fired hundreds of drones at Ukraine between late Friday and early Monday, killing more than a dozen people and saturating the country’s air defenses.
US President Donald Trump, who has been seeking to broker an end to Moscow’s three-year invasion, said Vladimir Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” and threatened Russia with sanctions over the attacks.
Diplomatic efforts to end the war have accelerated in recent weeks, with Russian and Ukrainian officials holding direct talks for the first time in three years earlier this month but the Kremlin has shown no signs of scaling back its maximalist demands.
“Kyiv, with the support of some European countries, has taken a series of provocative steps to thwart negotiations initiated by Russia,” the Russian defense ministry said in a statement.
Russian air defenses destroyed 2,331 Ukrainian drones between May 20 and 27, more than half of which were intercepted in areas outside the battlefield, the ministry said.
“Civilians, including women and children, were injured,” it said, describing its recent strikes on Ukraine as a direct “response.”
Moscow said it had only hit “military targets” in Ukraine but Ukraine said at least 13 civilians were killed in Russian attacks on Sunday.
Kyiv accused Russia of trying to evade responsibility for the killings.
“We need to end this eternal waiting — Russia needs more sanctions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram Tuesday.
Russia’s invasion, launched in February 2022, has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and ravaged large parts of the east and south of the country.


For three of the past four nights, Russia pummelled Ukraine with hundreds of drones in what Kyiv described as a weekend of “terror.”
Moscow fired fewer drones at Ukraine overnight into Tuesday but strikes still damaged buildings in the northern Sumy region and hurt multiple people in the regions of Kherson and Kharkiv, officials said.
In a rare rebuke of Russia’s Putin, Trump said on social media late Sunday Washington time: “I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!“
“I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!“
The Kremlin played down Trump’s criticism on Monday, saying Putin was taking measures “necessary to ensure Russia’s security” and that everyone was feeling “emotional” at the moment.
Ukraine and Russia sent back 1,000 people each over the weekend in their biggest ever prisoner exchange, while Moscow said it was preparing a document outlining its peace terms.
But that document was still not ready on Tuesday, despite Russia announcing it would present it to Ukraine once the prisoner swap was complete.
Moscow has consistently rejected a call by Kyiv and its Western allies for an unconditional and full ceasefire, and has called for Kyiv to drop its NATO ambitions and cede territory it already controls.
“As soon as the memorandum is ready, it will be sent to Kyiv. We hope that the Ukrainian side is doing the same,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday.

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said Tuesday that Donald Trump’s criticism of Vladimir Putin will not affect plans for a US-Russia prisoner exchange that the two presidents discussed in a call last week.
Trump called Putin “crazy” over the weekend after Russia pummelled Ukraine with its largest drone attack since the start of its full-scale offensive, launched in February 2022.
The Kremlin downplayed the spat when asked whether the US leader’s comments could disrupt plans for a nine-for-nine prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
“It is clear that the Russian and American sides should not and can not agree on everything. There will always be certain disagreements,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“But there is political will to implement the agreements that have been reached, and the work continues. We highly value this mutual willingness,” he added.
Following a two-hour call between Putin and Trump last week, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the pair had discussed “swapping nine people for nine people” — without giving any details on which prisoners.
There have been several rounds of prisoner exchanges between Washington and Moscow since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Washington has accused Moscow of “hostage taking” — arresting US citizens on baseless charges in a bid to use them as pawns to secure the release of Russians behind bars in the West.
In the latest swap last month, dual US-Russian citizen Ksenia Karelina was released from a Russian jail — where she was serving 12 years on treason charges after donating around $50 to a Ukrainian charity.
In exchange the United States freed Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen accused of breaking sanctions by trying to export US-made electronics to Russian military companies.