Vladimir Putin was accused of “mocking the goodwill” of Donald Trump with heavy attacks on Ukraine while claiming he wants peace.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has accepted a ceasefire to try to build a broader peace deal but this has so far been rejected by Putin.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Monday that he hoped Trump and his administration would see that Putin was “mocking their goodwill” following Russia’s deadly missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy.
“Ukraine unconditionally agreed to a ceasefire over a month ago. The heinous attacks on Kryvyi Rih and on Sumy is Russia’s mocking answer,” Mr Sikorski said on arrival at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
“I hope that President Trump and the US administration see that the leader of Russia is mocking their goodwill and I hope the right decisions are taken.”
The Ukrainian air force said on Monday that Russia launched 62 drones to attack the country overnight.
The air force said it shot down 40 drones while another 11 did not make it to their targets, likely due to electronic warfare countermeasures.
It did not specify what happened to the remaining 11 drones.
Ukraine has also launched a series of recent drone attacks on Russia.
The overnight attacks by Russia sparked a fire at a petrol station in Zaporizhzhia, injured at least eight people and damaged houses across the southeastern part of Ukraine, regional officials said on Monday.
Seven people were injured in a Russian drone attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa that also damaged several homes and a medical facility late on Sunday, Ukraine’s Emergency Service said.
The attacks came a day after two Russian ballistic missiles slammed into the heart of the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy, killing 34 people and wounding 117 in the deadliest strike on Ukraine this year, officials said, with Russia said to be planning a spring offensive in this area.
The targeting of Sumy followed a deadly April 4 missile strike on Mr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih that killed some 20 people, including nine children.
Mr Zelensky called for a global response to the attack. “Talks have never stopped ballistic missiles and aerial bombs. What’s needed is an attitude toward Russia that a terrorist deserves.”
Asking about the attack, Trump said late Sunday evening that he was trying to get the war stopped. “I think it was terrible and I was told they made a mistake, but I think it’s a horrible thing. I think the whole war is a horrible thing,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington.
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, said the Sumy attack crossed “any line of decency” and that the White House remained committed to ending the conflict.
“There are scores of civilian dead and wounded. As a former military leader, I understand targeting, and this is wrong,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would provide the US Turkey and international bodies with a list of Kyiv’s attacks during the past three weeks.
His Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia had launched almost 70 missiles, over 2,200 exploding drones and more than 6,000 guided aerial bombs at Ukraine, “mostly at civilians” since agreeing in mid-March to the a limited pause on strikes on energy infrastructure.
