Zelenskyy accuses US of inaction as Russian strikes kill over 70 in 2 days

STATEMENT. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy looks on as he delivers a statement along with Bavarian federal state prime minister Markus Soeder (not pictured), chairman of the Munich Security Conference Wolfgang Ischinger (not pictured), Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (not pictured) during the Munich Security Conference MSC, at the Residenz of the former Bavarian Kings, in Munich, Germany, February 14, 2026.

REUTERS

The ongoing Russian air assaults intensify, with significant civilian casualties reported, prompting Zelenskyy to call for increased sanctions on Russia and support from European partners

AT A GLANCE

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized the US for its lack of support following a series of deadly Russian attacks that killed over 70 people in two days.
• Zelenskyy urged the US to expand Ukraine's access to the Starlink satellite service to enhance its defense capabilities against Russian strikes.

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KYIV, Ukraine – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the US of being unwilling to help Ukraine after a Russian bomb attack on Thursday, October 7, killed at least 35 people in the east, bringing the two-day death toll from Russian strikes to more than 70.

Hours after the strike on the embattled city of Kramatorsk tore through two buses, Zelenskyy criticized Washington’s efforts to pursue economic ties with Russia while also seeking to mediate the more than four-year war.

City authorities reported a new drone attack in the evening that killed two people. That brought the total death toll in the city to 35.

Local authorities reported that a Russian guided aerial bomb killed two people in a village in southeastern Dnipropetrovsk, while one person died in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk.

The attacks were launched a day after a mass Russian drone and missile assault killed dozens across Ukraine — 22 of them in a residential building in the central town of Pryluky, about 130 km east of Kyiv.

Speaking in the early evening, Zelenskyy said 78 people had been killed and 215 wounded by strikes across Ukraine over the past two days.

Speaking to reporters in Pryluky, the Ukrainian leader urged the US to grant his requests to expand Ukraine’s access to the Starlink satellite service to help it target Russian ballistic missile launchers.

‘That’s called unwillingness’

“Open Starlink for Ukraine. You did open it when you were responding to Iran … I’ve said quite openly — give it to us, help us defend our skies and dominate there. And then Putin will sit down at the negotiating table,” he said in an emotional statement.

Ukraine has in recent months aimed to wrest the battlefield initiative from Russia, whose gains have slowed this year, but is still suffering from Moscow’s increasingly brutal air war.

“So where’s the truth here, where’s the honesty? Where’s the stalemate? … That’s called unwillingness,” he said, referring to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s assertion earlier on Thursday that the war was at a stalemate and that the United States would keep working toward a settlement.

“One cannot, on the one hand, negotiate with the Russians about future economic projects, while on the other hand say that we find ourselves in some sort of … diplomatic stalemate,” Zelenskyy added.

Top Russian and US officials, including US Special Envoy Jared Kushner, have held talks about bringing a US investor into the Nord Stream pipelines that delivered Russian gas to Germany before Moscow invaded Ukraine, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Ukrainian negotiators will travel to the US on Friday and Saturday for talks, Zelenskyy added, urging US President Donald Trump to increase sanctions pressure on Russia.

Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv that he expected Kyiv’s European partners to join the talks with the US. He also said Ukrainian negotiators would raise the issue of air defenses in light of near-constant Russian attacks.

Intensifying strikes

Twenty people were wounded in the Kramatorsk strike, one of the biggest single attacks by Russia this year. Moscow has denied targeting civilians but regularly pounds cities with missiles and drones.

“The Russians are deliberately targeting civilians. For them, a bus full of passengers is an attractive target precisely because a single strike can kill as many people as possible,” regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on the Telegram app.

Images posted by officials showed bodies strewn across a street littered with debris and the charred shell of a bus. Some bodies had not yet been identified, Zelenskyy said, adding that the attack would not go unanswered.

Separately, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people were killed and 19 wounded in morning attacks on the Ukrainian capital. Water and electricity supplies were disrupted, and officials said it would take time to restore them.

Russia has unleashed relentless drone strikes against Kyiv in recent weeks, targeting warehouses and data centers while renewing its campaign against Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter.

Russian technology and AI company Yandex said it could not yet determine whether equipment at a data center hit by a Ukrainian drone attack could be restored. Zelenskyy did not refer specifically to the strike on Yandex but said Ukraine was “mirroring” Russian attacks on data centers. – Rappler.com