Ukraine's Zelenskiy says overnight strikes lay bare Russia's intentions in war

By Dan Peleschuk and Anastasiia Malenko

KYIV (Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that large-scale Russian attacks overnight in various parts of Ukraine showed Moscow was avoiding negotiations about ending the more than three-year-old war.

The offensive included 574 drones and 40 missiles, Zelenskiy said, and was one of the largest of Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbour, now in its fourth year. One person was killed and 22 were wounded in the overnight strikes, authorities said.

Many targets were in western Ukraine. Zelenskiy said a missile strike on a U.S.-owned electronics firm was a "telling" indicator of Russian intentions in U.S.-led peace initiatives.

After a flurry of diplomacy, U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier this week there was agreement for a bilateral meeting between Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Now the signals from Russia are simply, to be honest, indecent," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "They are trying to back away from the need to hold meetings. They don't want to end the war. They carry on with massive strikes."

Most of the overnight injuries were in an attack on the U.S.-owned Flex electronics manufacturer in Ukraine's far-west Zakarpattia region, authorities said. Storage facilities there were damaged.

"We believe it was a deliberate strike precisely on U.S. property here in Ukraine, on American investment," Zelenskiy said, describing the company as a manufacturer of appliances.

"A very telling strike...at the very time when the world waits for a clear answer from the Russians on their move in talks to bring an end to the war," he said, suggesting Russia's interest in U.S.-led peace efforts was not sincere.

Russia did not comment on Zelenskiy's claim that its military deliberately hit a U.S.-owned facility, but Moscow denies targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.

A mayor near the damaged plant said it was owned by U.S.-listed Flex Ltd and employed thousands.

In Ukraine's western city of Lviv, the attack killed one person, wounded three others and damaged 26 homes, said Governor Maksym Kozytskyi. Authorities in southeastern Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region reported damage to businesses, homes and gas lines. Two industry sources told Reuters a key gas pumping facility had been attacked, without giving a location.

Russia said Putin had repeatedly expressed readiness to meet Zelenskiy but that Ukraine was trying to undermine Trump's efforts to resolve the conflict and its leader was illegitimate.

The defence ministry in Moscow said it had struck Ukrainian energy and airfield infrastructure as well as military industrial facilities overnight, and captured another frontline village - Oleksandro-Shultyne. Ukraine said it had hit a Russian oil refinery, a drone warehouse and a fuel base.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.

TRUMP: MOSCOW MAY NOT WANT A DEAL

Trump met both Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin over the past week in pursuit of a diplomatic end to the fighting but acknowledged that the Kremlin leader may not want a deal. Zelenskiy urged Trump to react firmly if that was the case.

"If the Russians are not ready, we would like to see a strong reaction from the United States," he said in comments released on Thursday.

U.S. and European military planners have begun exploring post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine, according to U.S. officials and sources, but the path to peace remained uncertain.

Zelenskiy said the discussions on security guarantees were "every day helping shape what will become the security architecture for Ukraine".

Chiefs of defense for the United States, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Ukraine met in Washington, D.C., between Tuesday and Thursday.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready for an honest talk about security guarantees for Ukraine and accused Ukraine's European backers of "adventurism" by excluding Moscow from their discussions.

Thousands of civilians, the vast majority of them Ukrainian, have been killed since Moscow's full-scale invasion of February 2022. More than a million Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are estimated to have been killed or wounded.

(Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko; Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Tomasz Janowski, Philippa Fletcher and Ron Popeski)