Russia launched a fresh wave of drone strikes in Ukraine on Saturday as world leaders gathered in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, with attacks reported across at least six regions despite renewed calls for a ceasefire.
The strikes, mostly carried out by ‘kamikaze’ drones, killed at least one and wounded several including an 11-year-old girl.
This comes after Trump called for President Putin on Thursday to end the attacks and agree to a peace deal.
President Zelensky has been in the Vatican today, using the dense presence of political leaders packed into St Peter’s Square for the Pope’s funeral to conduct meetings with European heads of state as well as President Trump, a conversation he described as “potentially historic”.
Vladimir Putin was not invited to the Pope’s funeral due to the International Criminal Court warrant currently out for his arrest.
One Russian drone attack struck a residential building in Kamianske in Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one man and leaving another woman in a ‘serious condition’ among the four wounded.
A resident of the area, Dmytro, said: “'I heard the explosion, ran outside, everything was on fire, many people were screaming.
“We started to panic, and ran to the forest.
“The children were very scared. Two windows in our house were broken.”
Further civilian casualties were reported in the city of Kharkiv, with a 14-year-old boy wounded from a Shahed, ‘kamikaze’ style, Iranian designed drone.
There was also an explosion at the Burevestnik defence plant in Kyiv, a production facility part of Ukraine’s war industry.
Last Thursday, Donald Trump took to social media to write a condemnation of continued Russian strikes on Ukraine while the US is publicly pushing for a peace deal to bring an end to the conflict.
The US president wrote on Truth Social: “I am not happy with the Russian trikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing.
“Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”
Trump also said when arriving in Rome on Friday that he had a “good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine” and that a deal was “very close” after the US envoy Steve Witkoff had a meeting with Putin in Moscow.
Zelensky has praised the conversation he had with Trump at the Vatican earlier today as productive and even “potentially historic”.
The Ukrainian leader also had several other talks with foreign counterparts including Keir Starmer, telling reporters that he was discussing the sensitivity of questions surrounding a possible peace deal.
Despite strongly pushing for a peace deal, having previously insisted that it would end the war on “day one”, the Trump administration has been frustrated by Russian reluctance to pause the fighting and Ukrainian unwillingness to give up occupied territory.
Trump said in an interview with Time magazine that Crimea, having been occupied by Russia in 2014, will not be returned to Ukraine and “Zelensky understands that”.
However, since this statement the Ukrainian president has said that his position is unchanged on Crimea, and that the region belongs to Ukraine.
