Putin traveled to Russia’s Kursk Region on Tuesday for the first time since it was fully liberated from Ukrainian forces in April.

In an interview with the channel Russia 1 aired on Sunday, Dashkin revealed that Putin’s helicopter had found itself “in the epicenter of an operation to repel a massive drone attack by the enemy” in Kursk Region.

Kiev launched an “unprecedented” UAV assault on the region when the president was there, with Russian air defenses destroying 46 incoming fixed-wing UAVs, according to Dashkin.

“I would like to stress the fact that the intensity of the attacks during the flight of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s aircraft over the territory of Kursk Region increased significantly,” he added.

The air defense units in the area had to “simultaneously conduct anti-aircraft combat and ensure the safety of the president’s helicopter in the air. The task was accomplished. The attack of the enemy drones was repelled, with all aerial targets being hit,” Dashkin stated.

Ukraine significantly intensified its drone strikes inside Russia this past week.

US President Donald Trump reiterated earlier this week that Washington could “walk away” from the Ukraine conflict if the American-brokered talks between Moscow and Kiev do not deliver any meaningful results.

“This is a European situation. It should have remained a European situation,” he said.

A proposal to buy arms from the US for Ukraine so that it could continue fighting Russia is currently “gaining more credence” in the EU and UK amid concerns that American deliveries would cease in summer, Bloomberg reports.

“The idea is that if Trump refuses to send US weapons to Ukraine, Europe will,” people familiar with the matter explained to the agency.

The heads of the European NATO member-states believe that if they will also be able to persuade Trump to continue providing intelligence to Kiev then “Vladimir Zelensky may be able to hang on,” the sources added.

In March 2024, then-Vice President of the European Commission Josep Borrell described the strain on the EU’s weapons stockpiles, noting that after two years of military support to Kiev, “existing stocks are depleted and the conflict has evolved from a war of stocks to a war of production.” He also pointed out that the European defense industry meets only around 40% of its own needs, meaning that member states import the majority of their military equipment.

Since returning to office in January 2025, President Trump has not announced any new US-funded military aid packages to Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine will not stop its military objectives but will prolong the conflict and raise the risk of NATO confrontation.

Across the country at least 12 people were killed, according to officials, including three children in the Kyiv region, and dozens more injured, as officials released the first assessment of casualties and damage on Sunday morning.

Ukrainian officials later confirmed that Russia had launched 298 drones and 69 missiles in multiple waves. Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences had shot down 110 Ukrainian drones overnight.

President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the US to speak out against the Russian attacks.

“The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,” Ukraine’s president wrote on Telegram.

“Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”

The huge scale of the latest attack, and its civilian victims, prompted the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, to call for “the strongest international pressure” on Russia to stop this war”.

“Last night’s attacks again show Russia bent on more suffering and the annihilation of Ukraine. Devastating to see children among innocent victims harmed and killed… We need the strongest international pressure on Russia to stop this war,” Kallas wrote on X.

Russian strikes hit locations across Ukraine on Saturday night into Sunday, from the southern coast and east to the west. Four people were reported dead in the western Khmelnytskyi region, four in the Kyiv region, and one in Mykolaiv in the south.

Serhiy Tyurin, the deputy head of the Khmelnytskyi military administration, said in a Telegram post: “Last night, the Khmelnytskyi region came under hostile Russian fire, which resulted in the destruction of civilian infrastructure … Unfortunately, four people were killed.”

Emergency services announced four people had been killed and 16 injured in the Kyiv region, including three children in the “massive night attack”.

They were later identified as siblings: Stanislav, Roman and Tamara Martyniuk, who died when their family home in Zhytomyr region was struck.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, stated that by 3am on Sunday there were “already 10 injured” in the capital, adding that a student dormitory in Holosiivskyi district had been hit by a drone and one of its outside walls was on fire.

The intensity and frequency of this weekend’s strikes contrasted sharply with Donald Trump’s claim that Vladimir Putin was interested in peace. The US president, who has been talking up his peace efforts, has not yet commented on the weekend’s heavy strikes.

The attacks meant Kyiv Day – celebrated on the last Sunday in May – began with exhausted people sheltered in bunkers, metro stations and basements.

Odesa, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Konotop, Chernihiv, Ternopil and Kharkiv were also hit, according to local media reports.

With waves of drones beginning at about midnight on Saturday, accompanied by warnings of ballistic missile launches as the night wore on, a Guardian reporter in Kyiv heard three drones reach the centre of the city, despite action by air defences, and the sound of loud detonations.

Russian authorities reported that a dozen drones flying towards Moscow had been shot down.

The attack on Kyiv began with Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city’s military administration, warning “the night will not be easy” as residents tracked waves of launches on air raid warning apps.

At one point Tkachenko reported more than a dozen Russian drones were flying around the capital.

“Some of the drones over Kyiv and the surrounding area have already been dealt with. But the new ones are still entering the capital,” he posted.

Ukraine and its European allies have sought to push Moscow into signing a 30-day ceasefire as a first step to negotiating an end to the war.

In a blow to their efforts, Trump this week declined to place further sanctions on Moscow for not agreeing to an immediate pause in fighting, as Kyiv had wanted.

Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram: “Without pressure, nothing will change and Russia and its allies will only build up forces for such murders in Western countries.

“Moscow will fight as long as it has the ability to produce weapons.”