KYIV, September 9 — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday publicly criticized the international community for what he described as an insufficient response to Russia’s escalating bombardment of civilian areas, urging foreign capitals to step up pressure on Moscow. Writing on social media, Zelenskyy said the reaction to the strikes had been too muted.
“Unfortunately, there has been too little response from the international community to these strikes, which are taking people’s lives practically every day,” he said, adding that “a response is needed — Moscow must not go into the winter believing that it can get away with missile and drone terror without consequences.” The appeal followed a week of nighttime and daylight attacks on Kyiv at the end of August — the heaviest sustained bombardment of the Ukrainian capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, more than four years ago.
Strikes have continued into September, and Ukrainian officials say the campaign is intended to sap civilian morale.
Casualties and the UN record
The United Nations said last month that increasing Russian aerial attacks killed or wounded more Ukrainian civilians in July than in any month since March 2022, with 437 killed and more than 2,600 wounded. In total, more than 16,800 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and more than 51,000 wounded since the invasion, according to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Moscow always denies it aims at civilians and says it targets military-related facilities.
Russia’s overnight attacks into Wednesday killed at least two people and wounded seven, Ukrainian officials said, as Moscow fired ballistic and cruise missiles and drones at six regions. Four of the wounded were in a 22-story residential building in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, where a drone damaged the 11th floor and started a fire on the 12th floor, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
Olha Smal, 62, a 12th-floor resident, said the blast wave flung her across her kitchen, one bedroom caught fire and smoke filled the apartment; her pregnant neighbor was wounded. “You live one day at a time. You don’t know what will happen to you tomorrow, or even what will happen today,” she told The Associated Press.
“It’s very, very hard.”
Conflicting accounts of the targets
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces hit a drone factory warehouse in Kyiv and claimed strikes on fuel reservoirs and an electric substation in the port city of Mykolaiv, a ship heading to Odesa with military cargo, and logistics facilities at Ukraine’s Starokozache border crossing with Moldova. Ukrainian authorities said the border strike killed two people.
On Wednesday evening, three people were killed in a Russian drone attack on the grounds of a shopping mall in Sumy, said Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy regional military administration, who called the strike “targeted.” Artem Kobzar, acting mayor of Sumy, said 14 people were injured. Zelenskyy said Ukraine is responding with daily long-range attacks on infrastructure deep inside Russia.
Ukrainian drones on Wednesday targeted an unspecified industrial facility in the remote Russian city of Novy Urengoy in northwest Siberia, local authorities said, and the attack was repelled. Ukraine has also targeted a Black Sea naval base in Novorossiysk.
Diplomacy without a breakthrough
International economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation efforts have not stopped the invasion. The U.S. has renewed its push to end the fighting, sending special envoys over the weekend to Kyiv and Moscow, though Washington’s efforts have not yet delivered substantial progress. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late Tuesday that the Ukraine-Russia talks were “substantive” but that much remains to be done.
What to watch next is whether the envoys’ shuttle diplomacy produces anything concrete before winter, and whether Zelenskyy’s call for tougher measures draws a firmer response from Ukraine’s partners as the strikes continue.
