Russian strikes killed 20 people in the war-torn eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk on Friday night, a sign that Moscow is stepping up bombardments of cities critical for Ukrainian logistics and support and taking advantage of Washington’s decision to pause military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Facebook on Saturday that Russian forces had fired two ballistic missiles into the small city of Dobropillia, and that after emergency services arrived, another Russian attack had rained down on the rescuers. The strikes killed 11 people in the city, according to Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration.
The attack came a week after the disastrous meeting in the White House with Mr. Zelensky and President Trump and Vice President JD Vance. A deal that was supposed to have been signed during Mr. Zelensky’s visit — and that would have promised some future U.S. involvement in Ukraine — fell apart. Since then, the United States has suspended military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, saying that Mr. Zelensky has not demonstrated that Ukraine is ready for peace.
On Friday, Mr. Trump was asked by reporters in the Oval Office whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was capitalizing on the void left by the United States’ dropping its aid to Ukraine.
“I actually think he’s doing what anyone else would do,” Mr. Trump said.
At the same time, Mr. Trump complained that Russia was “bombing the hell out of Ukraine,” and threatened sanctions against Russia unless it stopped attacking.
Still, he described his dealings with Mr. Putin in positive terms. Mr. Trump also described Ukraine as being more challenging to deal with as he pressed for a peace deal.
On Friday, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War posted a chart showing that Russia had intensified drone and missile strikes on Ukraine after Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January.
“Russia, not Ukraine, is the obstacle to peace,” George Barros, an analyst at the institute who focuses on Russia and Ukraine, wrote on X. He added: “Ukraine has offered many concessions to start peace processes. Russia has offered zero.”
On Friday night, Russia launched three missiles — one of which Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted — and 145 attack drones at Ukraine, officials said. Air defense forces shot down 79 drones; another 54 were lost from radar tracking without causing any damage.
In Dobropillia, the shelling damaged eight five-story buildings, an administrative building and 30 cars, and set several of the buildings on fire, Ukraine’s state emergency service said. Another 30 people were wounded, including five children.
Photographs posted by the emergency service showed what appeared to be a five-story apartment building on fire. Officials said that Russian forces had attacked again while firefighters were struggling to extinguish the blaze.
“Yesterday’s strike on Dobropillia was one of the cruelest in recent times,” Mr. Filashkin said on the Telegram messaging app.
Another nine people were killed in shelling elsewhere in the part of Donetsk still controlled by Ukrainian forces.
As of Tuesday, about 288,000 civilians remained in the Ukrainian-controlled areas of the Donetsk, the regional state administration said. About 31,000 live in communities classified as active combat zones.