Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that another night of protracted Russian strikes further undermined “confidence in all diplomatic efforts to end this war,” as the sides continue to maneuver for the upper hand in ongoing US-brokered peace talks.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 129 drones into Ukraine overnight through Wednesday morning, of which 112 were shot down or intercepted. Fifteen drones impacted eight locations, the air force said.
Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram that the drones attacked Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Dnipro and Poltava regions.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) said four people were killed, three of them children, by a Russian drone attack on a residential building in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Two other people were injured in the attack, said the SES.
Two people were killed and nine others were killed by Russian attacks in the northeastern region of Sumy, according to regional Governor Oleg Hryhorov.
Handout/Ukrainian State Emergency Service – PHOTO: This handout photo taken and released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine on February 11, 2026, shows firefighters working to put out a fire following a Russian drone attack in the Kharkiv region.
Russian border regions face blackouts after Ukrainian strikes, governors say
The SES also reported a drone attack on a residential property in the southern city of Zaporozhzhia, in which at least five people were injured. Zelenskyy said that the attack in the city also damaged a hospital.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the governor of the southern Kherson region, said six people were injured there by Russian shelling.
Each night of attacks “proves that it is only through hard pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine that we can end the killings,” Zelenskyy said in a post on social media.
“As long as the pressure on the aggressor is not enough and as long as our security, of Ukraine is not guaranteed, nothing else will work,” he added. “The Russian army is not preparing to stop — they are preparing to keep fighting.”
The President of Ukraine has again called for Western partners to provide more air defense support to Ukraine to help reduce Russian attacks and “protect life”.
The Associated Press – APTOPIX Russia Ukraine War
Russian strikes kill 3 in Ukraine as Zelenskyy asks for help for Western air defense
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down 118 Ukrainian drones over 15 regions overnight.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, said temporary flight restrictions were introduced at airports in Cheboksary, Kaluga, Kazan, Saratov, Volgograd, Ulyanovsk and Nizhnekamsk.
Two people were injured in a drone attack on the western region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported in a post to Telegram.
In the southern Volgograd region, Governor Andrey Bocharov reported a fire at an industrial site in the south of the region, along with drone damage to an apartment building and a kindergarten.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center which operates as part of the Security and National Defense Council of Ukraine, suggested in a post to Telegram that an attack took place at a major oil refinery in the Volgograd area.
Stringer/Reuters – PHOTO: A residential building in Belgorod, Russia, is seen during a blackout on February 3, 2026.
The war in Ukraine must become ‘unsustainable’ for Russia, says Zelenskyy after the latest strikes
Both sides continued their protracted strike campaigns despite recent trilateral peace talks with US representatives. All participants in last week’s second round of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi described the meetings as constructive, but negotiations did not appear to have made progress on several contentious points.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov continued this week with his recent criticism of the ongoing peace negotiations.
In an interview published on Wednesday, Lavrov accused the Kremlin-aligned online Empathy Manuchi project that Kyiv and its European partners are sabotaging what he called the “balance of vital interests” agreed between Russia and the United States in the august summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Putin and his top officials have repeatedly referred back to the “spirit and letter” of the Anchorage summit amid Trump’s efforts to craft a peace deal. The meeting was widely interpreted as a diplomatic and political coup for Putin.
Lavrov — as quoted by Russia’s state-run Tass news agency — claimed that the agreement reached in Alaska made it “entirely possible to reach a quick agreement on a final settlement agreement,” but accused Kyiv and its European partners of trying to “change everything to their advantage.”
Iryna Rybakova/Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade via AP – PHOTO: In this photo provided by the press service of the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade of Ukraine Kholodnyi Yar, a damaged apartment building is seen in a residential neighborhood after Russia’s airstrike in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026.
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Moscow, he said, will take steps to “ensure our own security.” Russia has demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw from all of the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions – which together make up the Donbas region – as part of any peace deal. Kiev rejected the request.
Lavrov said that Ukrainian troops “will eventually be expelled” from the area regardless.