Birds fly over a residential building as smoke rises from the city after a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 4, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
ALINA SMUTKO
Russia unleashed a massive drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, hours after US President Donald Trump expressed frustration at failing to make any progress toward ending Moscow’s war on Ukraine during a call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
In one of the most intense attacks in weeks, Russia launched a swarm of drones, mainly at Kyiv, in an attack that has lasted more than six hours. Blasts were heard across the capital as impacts were registered in five of the city’s districts and residential homes were damaged, Tymur Tkachenko, Kyiv’s military administration chief, said on Telegram.
Casualties are still being clarified, he said, adding that many more Russian drones had been detected in the air. Russia followed up the waves of drones with a ballistic missile attack that triggered loud explosions in the capital.
Trump’s talks by telephone with Putin were the sixth publicly acknowledged call between the two leaders since the US president returned to the White House in January. It comes as the Pentagon this week announced it was pausing the transfer of artillery rounds and air defenses to Ukraine, citing a review of US stockpiles as it weighs the need to save weapons for other threats.
“We had a call, it was a pretty long call. We talked about a lot of things including Iran. We also talked about, as you know, the war with Ukraine, and I’m not happy about that,” Trump told reporters Thursday evening.
“No, I didn’t make any progress,” he said when asked about their talks.
The Kremlin earlier Thursday also indicated there had been little progress on ending the almost three-and-a-half-year war — a key foreign policy aim of the US president — during the discussions.
“Donald Trump once again raised the question of an early cessation of hostilities,” Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the call, which lasted almost an hour. Putin said Russia “will not back down” from its war aims, Ushakov added.
He described the conversation as “frank, businesslike and concrete,” adding that the leaders agreed to continue their discussions soon. Putin and Trump talked about Iran and the situation in the Middle East “in considerable detail,” Ushakov said.
There was no discussion of a meeting between the two leaders, and they didn’t touch on the US decision to halt weapons supplies to Ukraine, Ushakov added.
Trump is likely to hold a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The US president campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine quickly, citing his relationship with Putin, but has also threatened to walk away if the two sides can’t agree to terms. Trump voiced his frustration at the pace of progress last month, saying it might be necessary to let Ukraine and Russia “fight for a little while” before trying to broker a peace deal.
While Trump has squeezed weapons supplies to Ukraine, he hasn’t imposed any more sanctions on Russia. That’s despite appeals from Zelenskiy and European leaders to ramp up pressure on Putin.
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Published on July 4, 2025