Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on his military to increase its long-range drone strikes against Russia as Moscow continues to carry out deadly attacks across Ukraine.
In his evening address on Friday, Zelenskyy said he plans for the army to launch at least “1,000 drones” against Russia daily, a more than threefold jump from the current estimate of 300.
“There needs to be more,” the president said. “There is a concrete goal, and we will fulfil this task.”
In a Telegram post, Zelenskyy also addressed reports that the United States’s spy chief, John Ratcliffe, had visited Moscow for meetings.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv “received information from the American side about the meetings in Moscow that took place these days”, but did not elaborate further.
“There were a number of meetings there,” he added, thanking the US “for the information and for the necessary tone of the conversation with Russia”.
The Kremlin confirmed Ratcliffe met Russian intelligence officials in Moscow, but said there were “no meetings of any kind with the Russian president”.
The CIA director’s visit to Moscow marked a rare high-level direct intelligence engagement amid stalled peace negotiations.
Ongoing Russian attacks have killed several people and wounded dozens across Ukraine over the past day.
At least one person was killed and two others injured in the Kyiv region early on Friday, regional Governor Tymur Tkachenko wrote on Telegram.
A drone strike on the northeastern Sumy region meanwhile killed one 61-year-old man and wounded seven people, four of whom were hospitalised, according to the regional military administration.
Russian air and artillery attacks also descended on Kherson overnight on Friday, killing a 61-year-old man and injuring 11 others, including a child, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. Strikes continued at multiple intervals throughout the day across Kherson, located in southern Ukraine near the Black Sea.
And in the Kharkiv region to the northeast, shelling killed a 26-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, the local administration said. Another 13 people were injured, including two children.
Meanwhile in Russia, Ukraine’s army struck an oil refinery in the Yaroslavl region, located about 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) from the front line, according to Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian president earlier wrote on Telegram that Kyiv’s military intelligence had proven the “high effectiveness” of strikes on military production and oil facilities deep in Russian territory, squeezing Moscow’s fuel supplies and export revenue while dealing “significant” damage to its solid-fuel rocket engine manufacturing.
