Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that Russia targeted the country with 17 aerial drones, two cruise missiles and a ballistic missile.

Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 14 of the drones, with the intercepts taking place over the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions. Ukrainian air defenses also shot down two of the three missiles, which also targeted Odesa.

Oleh Kiper, the regional governor of Odesa, said on Telegram the Russian attack
focused on energy, transport and logistics infrastructure, damaging several sites and injuring at least two people.

The governor of Mykolaiv, Vitaliy Kim, said on Telegram the drone attack damaged energy infrastructure there, causing power shutdowns that were resolved after several hours.

Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday it stopped a Ukrainian drone attack overnight, destroying five aerial drones over the Bryansk region.

There were no immediate reports of damage in Bryansk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday he has urged Donald Trump, the presumptive U.S. Republican presidential candidate, to visit Ukraine.

The president said in an interview with Axel Springer media outlets that he wants to hear Trump’s proposals for ending the war between Ukraine and Russian. However,
Zelenskyy said he is not interested in a Trump idea that the war would be over if only Ukraine would forfeit large amounts of land.

“If the deal is that we just give up our territories … then, it’s a very primitive idea,” Zelenskyy said. “I need a real idea because people’s lives are at stake.”

The U.S. military said Tuesday it has handed Ukraine an array of small arms and ammunition it seized from Iranian forces as they tried to deliver them to Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The cache included more than 5,000 AK-47 assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, sniper rifles and more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition that the U.S. seized from four vessels between May 2021 and February 2023, the U.S. Central Command said.

“These weapons will help Ukraine defend against Russia’s invasion” and are enough material to equip a brigade, the U.S. said.

Even so, Ukraine is facing a shortage of weaponry, partly because a right-wing contingent of Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives opposed to more Ukraine aid has so far successfully blocked consideration of $60 billion in new U.S. arms assistance. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he will put the measure up for a vote later this week.

Zelenskyy has said Kyiv’s forces will lose its two-year war to Russia without the additional U.S. armaments.

UK’s Cameron on the Hill

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron met Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington as part of a trip to push U.S. officials to support more aid for Ukraine.

Cameron met with congressional leaders but was unable to meet with Speaker Johnson due to a scheduling conflict.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly urged Johnson and other Republican opponents to back the Ukraine security bill. Some House Republicans have said the focus should instead be on domestic priorities, such as securing the U.S.-Mexico border from the surge of migrants crossing into the U.S.

“Success for Ukraine and failure for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin are vital for American and European security,” Cameron said in a statement. “The alternative would only encourage Putin in further attempts to redraw European borders by force and would be heard clearly in Beijing, Tehran and North Korea.”

Ukrainian officials have asked allies to provide more military help, particularly with systems to defend Ukrainian skies from Russia’s daily drone and missile attacks.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.