Russia targets Ukraine with glide bombs, drones ahead of Zelensky meeting with Trump
The Russian military targeted Ukraine’s second-largest city with glide bombs and drones in an overnight assault, days ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meeting with President Trump at the White House.
Russia struck a hospital in Kharkiv, located in the country’s northeast region, and injuring 57 people, Zelensky said Tuesday morning.
“An utterly terrorist, cynical attack on a place where lives are saved. Energy infrastructure in the region was also hit,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on in a post on X.
Kremlin’s military attacks hit energy facilities in the Sumy region, while in the Kirovohrad region, civilian infrastructure was damaged, including the railway.
Zelensky said Ukraine’s allies can help tamp down Russia’s attacks by providing more air defense systems, including the Patriot air defense system, the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS), a medium-range defense system, SAMP/T, a French-Italian mobile air and missile defense system and “other vital systems.”
“We count on action from the United States, Europe, the G7, and all partners who have these systems and can provide them to help protect our people,” Zelensky wrote. “Ukraine needs sufficient air defense capabilities to shield its skies from missiles, drones and glide bombs so that Russia’s aerial terror becomes meaningless.”
In total, Russia launched 96 attack drones and Ukraine said it shot down 69 of them overnight, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
Zelensky’s call for more support comes as military aid to Kyiv has fallen by 43 percent in July and August, when compared to the first half of 2025, according to a new report by Germany’s Kiel Institute.
Military allocations from European countries fell by 57 percent compared to the first six months of the year, even with the contributions to NATO’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative being included, according to the Tuesday report from the institution that tracks Ukraine aid.
“As military support for Ukraine increasingly depends on new weapons procurement—which often takes months or even years to implement—the NATO PURL initiative is an important vehicle to provide Ukraine with ready-to-use weapons from US stockpiles,” Christoph Trebesch, head of the Ukraine Support Tracker and research director at the Kiel Institute, said in a statement.
“At the same time, the decline in military aid in July and August is surprising. Despite the NATO PURL initiative, Europe is scaling back its overall military support,” Trebesch added. “What will be crucial now is how the figures evolve in the autumn.”
Zelensky is set to meet with Trump on Friday in Washington, where the two leaders are set to discuss military aid to Kyiv, including the U.S. potential dispatch of Tomahawk missiles.
Over the weekend, the president said he might send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, a suggestion that was blasted by Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev, who claimed the decision would “end badly” for everyone, including Trump.