Kyiv hit by barrage of drone strikes as Putin rejects Trump's truce bid

 Explosions over Kyiv sky after Russia launches drone attack

 One person has been killed and 26 others were injured after a night of intensive Russian strikes on almost every district in Kyiv, officials say.

 After hours of nightfall punctuated by the staccato of air defense guns, the buzz of drones, and large explosions, on Friday morning, a pall of bitter smoke hung over the capital of Ukraine. According to Ukraine, Russia launched 11 missiles and 550 drones, a record. The call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which Trump expressed his disappointment that Putin was not ready to end the war against Ukraine, came just hours after the strikes were carried out. According to Moscow, the war will continue for as long as it is necessary to accomplish its goals. Russia's overnight air strikes broke another record, Ukraine's air force said, with 72 of the 550 drones penetrating air defences - up from a previous record of 537 launched last Saturday night.

 Air raid alerts sounded for more than eight hours as several waves of attacks struck Kyiv, the "main target of the strikes", the air force said on the messaging app Telegram.

 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned one of the most "demonstratively significant and cynical" attacks of the war, describing a "harsh, sleepless night".

 Noting that it came directly after Putin's call with Trump, Zelensky added in a post on Telegram: "Russia once again demonstrates that it does not intend to end the war".

 He called on international allies - particularly the US - to increase pressure on Moscow and impose greater sanctions.

 After Russia's massive overnight attack, footage of firefighters battling to put out fires in Kyiv was posted on social media by Ukraine's state emergency service. According to Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the military administration for Kyiv city, rescue workers also discovered a body while digging through the rubble in the Svyatoshynsky district. Authorities in Ukraine claim that schools, buildings, and automobiles were set ablaze throughout the capital, causing damage to the railway infrastructure. Radosaw Sikorski, Poland's Foreign Minister, stated that the Polish consulate had also been damaged. The Russian strikes also hit the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Chernihiv.

 Russia's defence ministry said the "massive strike" had been launched in response to the "terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime".

 The acting governor of Russia's southern Rostov region said a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a village not far from the border on Friday night.

 Map showing five cities in regions in Ukraine hit by Russian air strikes on Thursday night – Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Kryvyi Rih .  It also shows Russia’s current military control and advances in Ukraine mostly in the east and south of the country.

 Friday's attacks were the latest in a string of major Russian air strikes on Ukraine that have intensified in recent weeks as ceasefire talks have largely stalled.

 War in Ukraine has been raging for more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

 Following his conversation with Putin on Thursday, Trump said that "no progress" to end the fighting had been made.

 "I'm very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don't think he's there, and I'm very disappointed," Trump said.

 

"I'm just saying I don't think he's looking to stop, and that's too bad."

 The Kremlin reiterated that it would continue to seek to remove "the root causes of the war in Ukraine".  Putin declared last week that "the whole of Ukraine is ours" in an effort to bring Ukraine back into Russia's sphere of influence. Responding to Trump's comments on Friday, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC that as long as it was not possible to secure Russia's aims through political-diplomatic means, "we are continuing our Special Military Operation" - Russia's preferred name for the invasion.

 Meanwhile, President Zelensky said that he hoped to speak to Trump about the supply of US weapons after a decision in Washington to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine, including those used for air defences.

 Kyiv has expressed concern that the move would make it more difficult to protect Ukraine from Russian advances on the front lines and escalating airstrikes. Speaking to reporters, Trump said "we're giving weapons" and "we haven't" completely paused the flow of weapons.  "Emptying out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves," he said of former President Joe Biden. Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte stated on Friday that he hopes "for a level of flexibility" to ensure Ukraine has what it needs, despite his understanding of Washington's need to maintain its own weapon stockpiles. Meanwhile, a German government spokesperson said they were currently in talks with the US to buy Patriot air defence systems to give to Ukraine.

 Destroyed vehicles at the site of a school damaged in Russia's massive overnight attack on Kyiv