Russian President Vladimir Putin said it is time to pressure the West, accusing them of trying to suffocate Russia and calling for a reciprocal response.
“They are trying to strangle us,” he said, according to RT. The comment came just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump publicly called him “absolutely crazy” following Russia's deadliest airstrike on Ukraine since the start of the large-scale war in 2022.
The attack took place between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Russia launched 367 drones and missiles over Ukrainian cities, killing 13 people and injuring dozens.
Then, from Sunday night to Monday morning, Russia attacked again, this time with 355 drones, killing 10 more civilians, in what the Ukrainian air force said was the largest drone-only assault since the war began.
Trump responded on Truth Social, writing: “Something has happened to Putin. He has gone absolutely crazy. Unnecessarily killing many people.” The post appeared just hours after images of destroyed residential areas circulated in multiple Ukrainian cities.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesperson, said that Trump's statement was not based on a strategy but on “an emotional overload of all those involved.” However, he did not deny the attacks. Instead, Peskov said that Russia's attacks were a “response” to Ukraine for hitting targets in Russian civilian areas, which he called “social infrastructure.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that there was no “military sense” in Russia's air campaign. “It is an obvious political choice... by Putin, a choice by Russia... to continue the war and destroy lives,” he added in a recorded speech.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that its air defense forces also shot down 20 Ukrainian drones in many regions within Russia, but did not list specific cities.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz joined the story shortly after the weekend attacks, stating that Ukraine now has no “more” range limits on how it uses Western weapons. That change means Ukraine can strike Russian military targets within Russia with the weapons it already has.
Russia warned that giving Ukraine the Taurus would be “a dangerous move.” It did not say what kind of response would follow, but the message was clear. As Kyiv's partners in Europe plan more sanctions, Washington continues to push for talks, while saying that if there is no real progress, they could “walk away.”
Peskov said that Russia was “really grateful to the Americans and personally to President Trump” for helping to organize the latest peace discussions. Last week, Trump and Putin held a two-hour phone call to discuss a possible ceasefire agreement. Trump said the call “went very well” and added that both sides would “immediately start” working on a ceasefire and a path toward “the end of the war.”
Zelensky publicly agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. Putin did not. Instead, he said that Russia would begin working on a “memorandum” outlining a “possible future peace.” Kyiv and its allies said that this was just more delay.
The first official talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators since 2022 took place on May 16 in Istanbul. But apart from a large prisoner exchange last week, nothing significant has emerged from them. Russia still occupies about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
