Russian strikes: Children among dead in Ukraine hours after Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin summit cancelled

At least seven people, including two children, have been killed in a wave of Russian drone and missile strikes across Ukraine, officials said.

A kindergarten was hit in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and there was widespread damage in Kyiv. Children were among 27 people injured, with 48 rescued.

The assault came hours after US President Donald Trump said his planned summit in Budapest with Russia’s Vladimir Putin had been shelved because he did not want a “wasted meeting.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attacks proved Moscow had not come under sufficient pressure over its war. The Kremlin rejected calls for a ceasefire along current front lines made by both Mr Trump and European leaders.

However, Russian officials insisted that preparations for the Trump-Putin summit were continuing, disputing the US president’s claim that it had been paused.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a date had yet to be agreed, adding that careful preparation was needed. A summit remained “the mutual desire of both presidents,” he said, dismissing “gossip and rumours” surrounding it.

Mr Zelensky, speaking in Oslo during the start of a European tour, said MrTrump’s proposal to freeze the front line was a “good compromise, but I’m not sure that Putin will support it and I said it to the President.”

The Ukrainian leader linked the postponement of the Trump-Putin meeting to his appeal for long-range US Tomahawk missiles. “As soon as the issue of long-range missiles became a little further away for us, for Ukraine, then almost automatically Russia became less interested in diplomacy,” he said.

Mr Zelensky and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Wednesday signed a letter of intent that could see Sweden supply between 100 and 150 Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine. Kristersson said the first jets could be delivered “within three years,” as part of a 10–15-year plan.

The latest bombardment came shortly after Ukraine said it struck a Russian chemical plant in the Bryansk region with UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. Military officials described it as “a successful hit” that penetrated Russian air defences.

The Bryansk plant produces “gunpowder, explosives and rocket fuel components used in ammunition and missiles employed by the enemy to shell the territory of Ukraine,” they said.

Overnight strikes on Kyiv were the first in nearly two weeks. A couple in their 60s were killed when a drone hit their high-rise building, while four people died in surrounding areas.

In Pohreby, north of the capital, a woman, a six-month-old baby, and a 12-year-old girl were killed when a strike set fire to their home. A man in a nearby village later died of his injuries.

In Kharkiv, a 40-year-old man was killed and seven others injured in a drone strike on a kindergarten. Children were among the six people wounded, local officials said. 48 were evacuated from the building.

Ukraine’s air force reported Russia launched 405 drones and 28 missiles overnight, including 15 ballistic missiles. Kyiv endured ballistic missile warnings throughout the night as explosions echoed across the city. Rescue teams battled fires by morning as energy infrastructure was again targeted, triggering power outages in multiple regions.