Russia Launches Deadly Attacks On Ukraine; Zelenskyy Calls For Pressure On Putin

This article was originally published in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Read the original article. 

Russia attacked Ukraine with missiles and drones, killing at least eight people in Kyiv and the Kharkiv region, Ukrainian officials said.

The attacks early on September 24 came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking at the annual UN General Assembly meeting in New York, called on the world to step up pressure on Russia.

“A war that was not prevented in time, was not stopped in time, and for which Russia was not punished in time, keeps spreading,” Zelenskyy said of the full-scale invasion Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022, warning that Moscow's aggression is not limited to Ukraine.

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“The more freedom Putin has to act, the more dangerous the world becomes for everyone else,” he said.

Seven people were killed and 10 injured in an overnight Russian drone strike on a farm in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region, Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskiy said. Oleh Synehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, put the number of dead at six.

In Kyiv, two people were killed in ballistic missile strikes, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, and emergency authorities said 10 others were injured.

One of those killed died in a parking lot near a maternity hospital in the Podil district that was damaged by missile fragments, Klitschko said.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired Zircon anti-ship missiles, Iskander ballistic missiles, and 282 drones in the overnight strikes it said mainly targeted Kyiv and the Odesa region in the south. Russia has been hammering Ukraine's capital with attacks on a nearly daily basis for weeks.

The September 24 strikes began not long after midnight, and Zelenskyy suggested they started while he was meeting with US lawmakers to discuss sanctions against Russia, including legislation that US President Donald Trump signed on September 18 and is aimed at increasing economic pressure.

"Russia will not end this war without pressure," Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post. He emphasized the need for more air defense systems.

Ukraine is suffering from a shortage of air defense systems such as the US-made Patriot, in part due to the US focus on the war with Iran that began in February, and Zelenskyy emphasized that Kyiv needs more.

"Each such attack is due to the fact that the pressure on the aggressor has not become total and Russia believes that it can continue to rely on ballistic terror," he said. "Now the United States has the opportunity to react strongly. We need ballistic interceptors to protect lives."

Zeelsnkyy met with Trump on September 22 on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly.

Trump, who made ending Russia's war against Ukraine a priority when he took office for a second time in January 2025, said that peace could come "sooner than people think," while Zelenskyy said it would be preferable if the war could end before the onset of winter.

Putin has given no sign he is ready to end the invasion without capturing the entirety of the eastern Donetsk region at a minimum.

“For almost five years now, Russian generals have been trying to carry out Putin's crazy order to seize our eastern land, the Donetsk region,” Zelenskyy told the General Assembly.

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Noting Russia's massive losses, he said, "It's madness...But they still keep going.”

Russia has rejected calls for a cease-fire. At the UN Security Council after a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in New York on September 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia would not halt attacks while any peace talks were underway.

"We will not pause the special military operation for the duration of negotiations, regardless of the format," he said, using the Kremlin’s term for Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Rubio said that the United States has invited Putin to attend the Group of 20 summit in Miami in December. Kremlin spokesman ​Dmitry Peskov told Rusian media that Moscow was "grateful and appreciative for this invitation," but did not announce a decision.

Copyright (c)2025 RFE/RL, Inc. Used with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

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