London – President Volodimir Zelenski said rocket missiles overnight and drones started by Russia show that Moscow’s claimed support for ending fire in Ukraine is not “real”.
Ukrainian authorities report air strikes in several regions of the country, including drone attack at a hospital in the northeastern city of sums. The barrage came hours after Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin agreed to stop attacks on energy infrastructure as part of the White House peaceful effort.
“Now in many regions you can literally hear what Russia really needs,” Zeleski wrote on Telegram. “About 40 shafts in our sky, the air defense works,” the president added, referring to the Iranian shock drone used by Russia.
“Unfortunately, there are hits and in the civil infrastructure,” Zelenski continued. “It is similar night attacks of Russia that destroy our energy, our infrastructure, the normal life of the Ukrainians. And the fact that this night was no exception, it shows that we must continue to put pressure on Russia in the name of peace.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, March 18, 2025, President Donald Trump and President of Ukraine Volodimir Zelenski in the Oval Cabinet of the White House, February 28, 2025.
AFP via Getty Images
The Air Force of Ukraine reported a total of six missiles and 145 drones fired in the country overnight. Seventy -two drones were removed, the Air Force said, with 56 more lost on flight, without causing damage. The regions Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, DniPropetrovsk, Kyiv and Chernihiv were affected by the attack, writes the TELEGRAM Air Force.
“Today, Putin has actually rejected the proposal for a complete end of fire,” Zelenski said. “It would be right for the world to reject any attempt by Putin to draw the war in response.”
“Sanctions against Russia. Aid to Ukraine. Strengthening allies in the free world and working to guarantee security,” the president added. “And only the real termination of Russia from attacks against civil infrastructure as evidence of a desire to end this war can bring peace closer.”
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the call between Trump and Putin was “a detailed and frank exchange of views”. Putin disagreed with the full 30-day cessation of the fire proposed by the US and Ukraine, the Kremlin statement said, with the Russian leader again pausing every fight as useful for Ukraine’s armed forces.
The two sides agreed to end the fire regarding the attacks of energy infrastructure, the Kremlin said, after which Putin “immediately gave the relevant order to the Russian troops.”
Ukrainian forces use floodlights as they are looking for drones in the sky over Kiev during a Russian punch of drones on March 18, 2025.
Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Hours later, the Russian authorities report an attack on drones on a oil depot in the southern region of Krasnodar.
“Due to the falling debris, there was a fire in the oil depot,” the local administration said in a statement published in Telegram. “The pipeline between the tanks was damaged.”
Local authorities say there are no casualties, although they added that 30 workers were evacuated from the area and the operations were stopped.
The region’s operational channel said the fire at the landfill had spread to more than 18,000 square feet by leakage in a reservoir. “Emergency services maintain the situation under control,” it is said that “179 people and 54 units of equipment are involved in the extinguishing of the fire.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense said his forces had removed 57 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsia said the operations were temporarily suspended at airports in the cities of Kazan, Nizyni Novgorod and Niesenkamsk, though they did not specify the reason. Flights at Russian airports are regularly disturbed during drone attacks.
Ukrainian police, experts and rescuers collect debris from a drone on the outskirts of Kiev on March 18, 2025.
Genya Savilov/AFP through Getty Images
The White House said on Tuesday after the call between Trump and Putin that the two leaders “agreed that the movement to peace would begin with the cessation of fire of energy and infrastructure, as well as technical negotiations for the implementation of sea reconciliation in the Middle Sea, complete cessation.”
Trump, in his own post on social media, later, called the conversation for hours “very good and productive”.
“We agreed with an immediate cessation of the fire of all the energy and infrastructure, with the understanding that we will work quickly to have a full fire and, in the end, the end of this very terrible war between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump writes.
Trump also stated that providing the 30-day termination of the fire searched by Ukraine would be “difficult” in a video of a pre-recorded interview with Fox News.
Alexandra Hüzler of ABC News and Oleksiy Pshemyskiy contributed to this report.
