Zelenskiy accuses Russia of ‘Easter escalation’
At least two people were killed in Ukraine in a large-scale daytime Russian attack, officials said, in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned as an “Easter escalation” of tensions as Russian forces changed tactics to avoid Ukrainian air defenses.
Since the start of the war more than four years ago, Russia has carried out massive drone and missile strikes, mostly at night.
It has repeatedly sent hundreds of drones and missiles during daylight hours in recent weeks, setting a record for the number of weapons used in a similar attack on March 24.
In his social media post after his phone call with Pope Leo XIV, Zelenskiy wrote that Russia launched hundreds of “Shahed warplanes and dozens of missiles against our cities and towns.”
On Friday, drones attacked housing and civilian infrastructure in the central Zhytomyr and Kiev regions, killing one person in each, according to the governors’ statement on the Telegram application.
“Essentially, the Russians have only intensified their attacks, turning what was supposed to be silence in the skies into an Easter tension,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told X. he said.
Two people were killed and more than two dozen people were injured in missile, bomb and drone attacks in the northeastern region of Kharkiv in the last 24 hours, according to the region’s Governor Oleh Syniehubov.
“The current series of strikes is perhaps the most intense since the beginning of the war, and certainly the heaviest since the beginning of the year,” said Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Friday it had foiled a planned attack by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) against a senior law enforcement officer near a business center in Moscow, the state-run RIA news agency reported.
“The SBU planned to remotely detonate the explosive device during a visit to the target’s business center, detecting it through organized video surveillance,” the FSB said in a statement, without providing details about the intended target or when the attack would take place. he said.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and Reuters could not immediately confirm the details.
With DPA and AP
