Putin defies Trump with largest ever drone, missile attack on Ukraine

Russia launched at least 350 explosive drones and nine cruise missiles while Vladimir Putin called Donald Trump’s rebuke of him as ‘crazy’ an ‘emotional’ response.

Russia launched its largest-ever drone-and-missile assault on Ukraine overnight into Monday, according to Ukrainian officials, defying President Trump’s calls for an end to the bombardment. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched more than 350 explosive drones and at least nine cruise missiles. Kyiv scrambled aircraft and deployed electronic warfare systems and mobile air-defence teams throughout the country in response, the government said.

The latest attacks come hours after US President Donald Trump issued a rare rebuke to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, denouncing air strikes on the Ukrainian capital and other cities that killed at least 12 people Sunday.

BREAKING:

Trump says he’s not happy with Putin for firing a lot of missiles at Kyiv and killing a lot of people.

Trump also said:

“I don’t know what the hell happened with Putin.” pic.twitter.com/mpgEEP2RwI

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 25, 2025

“He has gone absolutely CRAZY!,” Trump said in a social media post. “He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.”

Trump was also critical of Zelensky, saying in the same post that Zelensky “is doing his Country no favours by talking the way he does.”

The Kremlin said Monday’s strikes were a response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, which Moscow said involved dozens of drones over the weekend. Ukrainian officials said the strikes damaged several Russian military-industrial facilities, including a factory that makes parts for ballistic missiles.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its own overnight salvo against Ukraine struck an air base in a central region of the country as well as other military objects in several regions.

“This was a retaliatory strike,” said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. He called Trump’s criticism of Putin an “emotional reaction” at a time when Russia and Ukraine are taking some steps with US encouragement to open talks about an end to the war.

Zelensky denounced Monday’s attacks and called for fresh economic sanctions against Russia.

“Only a feeling of total impunity can allow Russia to launch such strikes,” he said in a post on social media. “There is no meaningful military sense to this.”

The latest exchange of missile-and-drone attacks comes as efforts to end the war have reached something of an impasse. Russia last month dismissed a proposed 30-day ceasefire that was brokered by Trump and accepted by Ukraine, and has insisted that Kyiv first agree to discuss its disarmament and the abandonment of its aspirations to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

After a call with Trump last week, Putin said a memorandum could soon be drafted that commits Moscow and Kyiv to working on a peace deal. But Peskov said Monday that even this initial document — essentially an agreement to keep talking — hadn’t even been finalised by the Russian side, let alone passed to Kyiv.

Russia has stepped up missile-and-drone assaults on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and other regions after President Trump last week declined to impose further sanctions on Moscow over its refusal to halt its invasion.

Russia attacked with a total of 367 drones and missiles – one of the largest single-night raids of the war, according to the Ukrainian Air Force – in a second consecutive day of pounding strikes that sent civilians running for shelters in the middle of the night. Officials said that children were among those killed by the strikes and that a further 60 were injured and more than 80 residential buildings damaged across the country, even as more than 300 of the missiles and drones were shot down.

President Volodymyr Zelensky called for more economic sanctions against Russia to force it to stop its invasion, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to do despite Trump’s entreaties.

“Russia is dragging out this war and is continuing to kill on a daily basis,” he said on social media. “It can’t be ignored. The silence of America, the silence of others in the world, only encourages Putin.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said its strikes had targeted Ukrainian military-production facilities. The ministry said it had downed 110 Ukrainian attack drones in regions across the west of Russia, including Moscow. Ukrainian officials said that their large-scale drone attacks on Russian targets in recent days have damaged several Russian military-industrial facilities, including a factory that makes parts for ballistic missiles.

The increased ferocity of Russia’s assaults comes days after Trump demurred on threats to sanction Russia further if it didn’t sign an immediate, 30-day ceasefire. In a two-hour call with Trump last week, Putin refused a truce that Kyiv consented to in March. Trump has publicly insisted that Putin wants peace, but in a call with European leaders this week, conceded that Putin isn’t ready for peace, The Wall Street Journal reported, because he believes he is winning.

Zelensky said only pressure on the Kremlin would yield results. “Resolve is important right now – the resolve of the United States, the resolve of European countries, of all those in the world that want peace, ” Zelensky said Sunday. “The world knows all the weak points of the Russian economy. It is possible to stop the war, but only thanks to the necessary pressure on Russia.” Ukraine countered the aerial assault with a combination of missile defence, Western-provided F-16 jet fighters and small drones used to intercept Russian strike drones, an Air Force spokesman said.

Trump last week said that Ukraine and Russia should continue negotiations over a peace deal among themselves – talks that have so far yielded only one tangible result: a three-day exchange of around 1,000 prisoners from each side that concluded Sunday.

Russia has confounded Trump’s efforts to end the war, which it launched in February 2022, insisting that its original war goals of a neutered Ukraine under firm Russian influence be met even as its army struggles to advance in its neighbour’s east.

The Wall Street Journal