Russia and Ukraine exchange aerial attacks amid ceasefire confusion

The Guardian

20-03-2025

Russia and Ukraine exchanged aerial assaults overnight amid uncertainty over the timing and terms of a limited US-brokered ceasefire agreed this week.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russia launched nearly 200 Iranian Shahed drones overnight, wounding at least 10 people, including four children, and damaging 'residential buildings, a church, and infrastructure'.
'Russia's strikes on Ukraine continue despite its propagandistic statements … With each launch, the Russians show the world their true attitude toward peace,' Zelenskyy said in a morning statement on Telegram.
Russian forces also struck a village in the Sumy region and carried out a series of airstrikes on a town near the city of Kharkiv.
Ukraine launched its own mass drone attack on Russia, appearing to hit an airfield near a key airbase about 435 miles (700 km) from the frontlines.
The airbase in the Russian city of Engels hosts the Tupolev Tu-160 nuclear-capable heavy strategic bombers that have frequently been involved in strikes against Ukrainian cities.
'Engels today suffered the most massive UAV attack of all time,' Roman Busargin, the governor of Russia's Saratov region, wrote on Telegram.
Busargin said the attack left an airfield on fire and that nearby residents had been evacuated. He did not specifically mention the Engels base, but it is the main airfield in the area.
Images shared by Russian Telegram channels showed thick smoke rising from an area west of the airfield, with reports suggesting that an ammunition depot cruise missile exploded. Regional officials said 10 people were injured in the strike.
Zelenskyy on Wednesday said he had signed up to a partial ceasefire that Trump agreed with Vladimir Putin a day earlier after what the Ukrainian leader had described as a 'positive, very substantive and frank' call with the US president.
But there was confusion over what exactly Trump and Putin had agreed, as Moscow and Washington gave very different readouts in the aftermath.
Trump, in an initial post on Truth Social, said the partial ceasefire would apply to 'energy and infrastructure', giving the impression that it would extend to all civilian infrastructure. Zelenskyy, after his call with Trump, spoke about 'ending strikes on energy and other civilian infrastructure'.
However, Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Wednesday the ceasefire would only apply to the energy sector, and a White House statement on Wednesday also referred only to energy.
In a Zoom call with journalists late on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said he 'received signals' from the US that the ceasefire would include energy facilities as well as civilian infrastructure.
Zelenskyy said his team would draw up a list of the kind of facilities they felt could be included and would present them to the Americans at upcoming negotiations.
The Ukrainian leader also said that he and Trump had discussed the US proposal to take ownership of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
US control over the plant as part of a potential peace plan depended on whether it can be restored and brought back into operation, Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian president added that he was discussing with Washington the possibility of an agreement under which the US could take the lead in its recovery.
There is also uncertainty over when US and Russian officials will meet next.
Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said a new round of talks between the US and Russia was set to take place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
On Thursday, Peskov said the discussions would focus on ensuring safe shipping in the Black Sea, though the exact date of the meeting remained unclear.
'It may not be Sunday itself … it could be at the start of next week,' Peskov told journalists in Moscow.