
From: AP NEWS BY ILLIA NOVIKOV
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces bombarded the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with rockets overnight, wounding 20 people, including four children, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday as he urged European leaders to make the continent safe by building an ambitious air defense umbrella.
With the war grinding on since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor more than 3½ years ago, there has been no let-up in Russian strikes on civilian areas of Ukraine and its army’s push on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.
A settlement to end the war appears to be no closer despite months of U.S.-led peace efforts. U.S. President Donald Trump’s ultimatums and deadlines for Putin to engage with proposals to stop the fighting have passed without obvious consequences.
Just over the past two weeks, Zelenskyy said on Telegram, Russia has launched more than 3,500 drones, more than 2,500 powerful glide bombs and almost 200 missiles at targets inside Ukraine.
Russian glide bombs, usually dropped by jets at high altitude and far behind the front line, and drone swarms are a major challenge for Ukrainian defenses. Glide bombs aren’t very accurate, but they leave big craters, and Ukraine has no effective countermeasure against them.