A few hours before a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump at the White House, 14 people were killed in Russian airstrikes in Ukraine. Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko announced this on Monday. The Russian side reported that the deputy commander of the Leningrad Military District, Lieutenant General Esedulla Abachev, was seriously wounded. Amputations apparently required.
According to Ukraine's Interior Minister Klymenko, seven people were killed in a drone attack in the northeastern city of Kharkiv in the early morning hours, including two children. The Russian drones reportedly destroyed large parts of a five-story residential building, and fires broke out on at least three floors. Twenty-three people were injured in the drone attack, and eleven more were injured in a missile attack on the city.
According to the Interior Minister, three people were killed and 23 others injured in an attack in the Zaporizhzhia region in the south of the country. Russian troops also attacked two frontline towns in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. According to authorities, four people were killed in the villages of Dobropillya and Kostiantynivka.
Continuous shelling by the Russian army
The small town of Dobropillia has been under constant fire for several days since the Russian army advanced along the Donetsk front. It is located north of the city of Pokrovsk, considered a key logistical hub for the Ukrainian army. Russian drone strikes also sparked fires in the energy infrastructure in the southern Odessa region, which, according to local authorities, were quickly extinguished.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia launched 140 drones and four missiles across the country overnight. This was the most serious attack since August 4. Strikes were also reported in the Zaporizhzhia, Odessa, and Sumy regions. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on Platform X that Russia was a"murderous war machine" that must be stopped through transatlantic unity and pressure.
Air raid warning in Kyiv
An air raid siren was sounded in the capital Kyiv in the afternoon, according to AFP reporters on the scene. The Ukrainian Air Force announced that air raid sirens had been sounded throughout the country due to the threat of Russian attacks.
Russia has stated that it does not deliberately target civilians. However, no comment from Moscow on the latest attacks was immediately available. Russia has been waging war on Ukraine for almost three and a half years.
High-ranking Russian general seriously injured
However, the Russian side announced that the deputy commander of the Leningrad Military District, Lieutenant General Esedulla Abachev, had suffered serious injuries. Abachev had been at the front since the first days of the war, wrote the head of the Russian republic of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, on Telegram."He held several important command positions, but was always at the very front, on the most responsible and therefore most dangerous sectors of the front." Abachev is a native of Daghestan.
Melikov did not provide details about the injury, saying only that the 57-year-old was being treated in"one of the best military hospitals in the country." According to the Ukrainian military intelligence service (HUR), the general had to have several limbs amputated. The HUR claimed the injury as a result of a strike against a military column in the western Russian region of Kursk. Abachev is not the first high-ranking Russian officer to be injured in the war against Ukraine. The deaths of twelve officers with the rank of general have been confirmed so far.
The Leningrad Military District was recreated in 2024 by order of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and encompasses all regions of northwestern Russia up to the Ural Mountains. Russia's northern metropolis, St. Petersburg, was called Leningrad during Soviet times, and this name persists in some official names.
Zelensky with European politicians in Washington
In Washington, US President Trump will meet with Ukrainian President Zelensky and leading European politicians on Monday. The meeting will discuss plans for a possible end to the war, which Trump brought back from his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
