728 drones and 13 missiles: Putin launches the most massive bombardment of Ukraine yet

MoscowA few hours after that Donald Trump announced that he would deliver the coveted Patriot air defense systems to Volodymyr Zelensky.Vladimir Putin has responded with the most massive bombardment of Ukraine since the war began. A total of 728 drones and 13 missiles, a figure far exceeding the previous record, set last Friday, when the Russian army launched a combined attack of 550 aircraft and missiles. At least six people died and another 39 were wounded, while the Ukrainian army, for its part, killed three and wounded six more in an air offensive in Kursk.

That Russia is capable of sending such a large number of drones in a single day is alarming for Kiev. Former Ukrainian officer Tatarigami warned shortly before the attack that, "even with a very optimistic interception rate" by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles, "a wave of 700 Russian drones would allow 35 to hit their target."

Zelensky calls it a "revealing" attack, which comes "at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace and a ceasefire, which Russia continues to reject." The Ukrainian president has called on his allies to intensify sanctions against Moscow, especially in the energy sector.

In fact, this barrage of drones and missiles comes just after the US president revived his ultimatum to pressure the Russian economy and the European Union also threatened him with the "toughest" sanctions. "Putin is talking a lot of nonsense to us," Trump lamented on Tuesday, adding that he was "very strongly" considering supporting the US Senate's initiative to increase restrictions against Russia. This is not the first time the American leader has threatened to take this step, although he has so far always resisted.

Perhaps that's why the Kremlin doesn't take Trump's words seriously. "We are quite calm," said its spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, on Wednesday. Russia's intention, he reiterated, is to "continue dialogue with Washington" and "repair bilateral relations, which are quite broken." The Russian government has seized on another statement by Trump in which he acknowledged that the war in Ukraine was proving "much more difficult to resolve than I imagined."

This would support one of the ideas Moscow insists on: that "the root causes of the conflict" must be addressed, that is, his conditions for Kiev to surrenderAccording to the Kremlin, it is now the Ukrainian government that is putting spokes in the wheels in the next round of direct talksZelensky fears that, in the current format, it will be a dialogue of the deaf, with each side defending irreconcilable positions. Peskov, on the other hand, asserts that Ukraine is primarily interested in negotiations because the Russian military is advancing on the front lines, and every day that happens, it will have to accept "new realities."

The pro-Putin press believes that "something broke" after the last call between the Russian president and Trump on July 3, after which the American leader admitted he was not "happy." As one of the leading analysts of the Moskovski KomsomoletsMikhail Rostovsky, "the Kremlin believes a good fight is better than a bad peace." From his perspective, Putin has assumed that even if his refusal to abide by the US peace agreement leads Trump to become closer to Zelensky, it will not be enough to "break the dynamics on the ground," which will continue to become increasingly favorable to Russia.

"Bomb Moscow"

Meanwhile, the Kremlin questions the plausibility ofa recording published by CNN Trump sits at a 2024 fundraiser, boasting about having threatened Putin with bombing Moscow if he dared to invade Ukraine. According to what the then-candidate explained to some campaign donors, the Russian president believed him "about 10 percent." It is unknown when that conversation took place. What is known is that Trump called Putin a "genius" when he invaded Crimea in 2014.