The announcement got here hours after in a single day Russian strikes on vitality websites left 60,000 Ukrainians with out electrical energy.
Revealed On 31 Aug 2025
Ukraine intends to strike deep into Russia following a big Russian drone assault that left 60,000 Ukrainians with out electrical energy, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated.
Talking on Sunday after a gathering together with his high common, Oleksandr Syrskii, the Ukrainian president confirmed the brand new deliberate strikes on X.
Either side have intensified their air strikes in latest weeks, with Moscow attacking Ukraine’s vitality and transport techniques in addition to launching lethal strikes in latest days on civilian areas in Kyiv and Zaporizhia, and Ukraine focusing on Russian oil refineries and pipelines.
In a single day, Russian drones hit 4 vitality amenities in Ukraine’s Odesa area, in response to the personal vitality firm DTEK. The strikes left 29,000 folks with out electrical energy, native authorities reported.
The port metropolis of Chornomorsk close to Odesa, the place one individual was injured, was the worst-affected place, regional Governor Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram. “Essential infrastructure is working on turbines,” he stated.
DTEK stated emergency restore work would begin following the all-clear from the Ukrainian navy, which reported that in whole, Russia had attacked Ukraine with 142 drones, all however 10 of which it claimed to have downed.
The Russian navy urged on Sunday that it had shot down 112 Ukrainian drones prior to now 24 hours.
In the meantime, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov blamed Europe for the continuation of the warfare and for hampering United States President Donald Trump’s peace efforts.
“The European warring occasion is sustaining its elementary course; it’s not giving in,” he stated from the sidelines of a summit in China, in a reference to the European Union’s arms deliveries to Ukraine.
His phrases got here simply days after a Russian air strike killed at the least 23 folks and broken EU diplomatic places of work in central Kyiv.
Talking simply hours earlier than Trump’s deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to comply with a gathering together with his Ukrainian counterpart Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated he thought the warfare, which started greater than three and a half years in the past, wouldn’t end quickly.
“I’m getting ready myself inwardly for this warfare to final a very long time,” he informed the general public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday, noting that diplomatic efforts to carry the battle to an finish couldn’t come “on the worth of Ukraine’s capitulation”.
Elsewhere, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Fee, travelled to Poland on Sunday as a part of her tour of EU states that border Russia and its ally Belarus.
Talking alongside the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, von der Leyen referred to as Putin a “predator” who might solely be stored in examine by means of “sturdy deterrence”.
The EU Fee president additionally stated that member states bordering Russia and Belarus would obtain extra funding from the bloc, calling the defence of its borders a “shared duty”.
Whereas the EU continues to focus on Russia’s safety danger for the broader continent, the Kremlin has sought to brighten its navy achievements in a bid to make its victory in Ukraine appear inevitable, in response to the Institute for the Research of Warfare (ISW), a US suppose tank.
In its newest evaluation of the battle, ISW stated that Russian military chief Common Valery Gerasimov’s claims on Saturday about Russian positive aspects have been exaggerated.
The Russian common had urged that the Kremlin’s forces had captured 3,500sq km [1,351sq miles] of territory and 149 settlements because the begin of March.
“Gerasimov’s claims notably inflate Russian positive aspects by roughly 1,200 sq. kilometres [463sq miles] and 19 settlements,” the ISW stated.