Kyiv was the main target of an hourslong assault that killed at least two people, officials said. The barrage came hours before the top American and Russian diplomats met.
Russia pounded Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in a deadly, hourslong assault early on Thursday, hours before a meeting between the top U.S. and Russian diplomats.
Ukrainian officials said Kyiv was the main target of the intense overnight bombardment, which killed at least two people and wounded 25 others, according to local officials. A cloud of smoke was left hanging over the city on Thursday morning.
In the attack, Russia launched 18 missiles and around 400 drones on Ukraine during a “massive combined strike” that lasted for nearly 10 hours, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted on social media on Thursday.
“This is a clear escalation of terror by Russia,” Mr. Zelensky wrote.
The assault also sparked fires in a half-dozen neighborhoods, according to the local authorities in Kyiv. An outpatient hospital in the Podil neighborhood was heavily damaged, according to local authorities. Timur Tkachenko, Kyiv’s military governor, said residential buildings, cars and warehouses were burning.
Later on Thursday, Mr. Zelensky addressed top European officials at the opening ceremony of a conference in Rome focused on Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction.
Mr. Zelensky said Russia had “prepared for this meeting” in Rome by pummeling Ukraine overnight, with attacks of the sort that could spook investors.
“Ukrainians now face attacks by hundreds of these drones every single night,” Mr. Zelensky told the crowd, which included the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany.
He urged those gathered to increase investment in Ukraine’s defense capabilities — both to help protect the country now and to lay the groundwork for rebuilding once the war is over.
“We need a Marshall Plan-style approach,” he said.
Ms. von der Leyen later announced a new equity fund to support Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction, backed by the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy and Poland. The fund will have initial capital of about $250 million, far less than the amount needed to rebuild Ukraine, which the World Bank estimates at more than half a trillion dollars.
In Malaysia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, met amid efforts by the Trump administration to broker a cease-fire in Ukraine. Moscow has resisted those efforts, prompting President Trump to repeatedly express frustration with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
But Mr. Putin has brushed aside the comments and is pushing ahead in Ukraine with renewed intensity.
Mr. Trump has often expressed skepticism of U.S. aid to Ukraine and admiration for Mr. Putin, but in recent weeks his tone has shifted.
On Monday, Mr. Trump said he was “not happy with President Putin at all” and announced that the United States would send more weapons to Ukraine to help it fend off Russia’s invasion. Those comments were a reversal after his administration paused some arms transfers to the country just a week earlier.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump stepped up his criticism of Mr. Putin and accused him of duplicity.
“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Mr. Trump told reporters during a cabinet meeting. “He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.
Mr. Rubio told reporters in Malaysia that in his meeting with Mr. Lavrov, he had “echoed what the president said, both disappointment and frustration at the lack of progress in peace talks.” But he noted that the administration’s strategy was to engage with all parties in the war, and he said he would talk to officials in Washington about new ideas that he and Mr. Lavrov had discussed.
Russia’s foreign ministry, in a statement, called the discussion between Mr. Rubio and Mr. Lavrov about Ukraine “a substantive and frank exchange of views.” It did not provide further details.
