Ukraine rejected calls from Donald Trump for a new president while escalating strikes deep inside Russia, including a drone attack that crippled a Yandex data center for the third time in four days. The strikes came as Kyiv accused Moscow of blocking any real de-escalation, even as the U.S. president sought to shift blame for high diesel prices onto Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy dismissed Trump’s suggestion that he step aside, writing on X that Ukraine’s leadership enjoys broad public support. “He has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide,” said Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister. The exchange followed Trump’s claim that Zelenskyy had failed to secure a deal to end the war and was responsible for rising fuel costs in the U.S.
Trump’s remarks came after he struck a deal with Vladimir Putin to purchase Russian diesel, a move that Ukrainian and European officials condemned as aiding Moscow’s war effort. Kyiv has repeatedly stated it would halt strikes on Russian oil refineries if Russia stopped targeting its energy infrastructure. “Ukraine will be ready to stop striking Russian oil refineries if Russia stops striking our energy infrastructure,” Zelenskyy wrote. “Putin does not want to do so.”
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Ukrainian drones struck a Yandex data center in Vladimir, east of Moscow, on Sunday, disrupting services across the company’s platform. The attack caused outages in dozens of Russian cities, as well as in Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia, according to Astra, an independent Russian news outlet. Yandex confirmed the facility was fully disabled, with no injuries reported.
This was the third attack on Yandex facilities in four days. On Thursday, drones hit a data center in the Ryazan region, and the following day, another strike damaged a major center in Kaluga. Yandex, often compared to Google, operates Russia’s dominant search engine and a range of digital services, including artificial intelligence development.
The conflict’s toll was showed in Zaporizhzhia, where search and rescue operations concluded after a Russian bombing on Saturday. Ivan Fedorov, a former regional leader, reported 23 deaths, including four children, and over 30 injuries, eight of whom remain hospitalized. Separately, a Ukrainian drone strike in Russia’s Bryansk border region killed one man and wounded two women, according to local officials.
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