Moscow (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Russia and Ukraine accused each other on March 19, 2025, of launching air strikes that caused fires and impaired infrastructure just hours after their presidents agreed to a limited ceasefire to stop strikes on energy infrastructure.
Russian President Putin consented to temporarily halt bombarding Ukrainian energy facilities but refused to support a full 30-day ceasefire desired by U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone conversation with the Russian leader.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had already agreed to the U.S.’s suggested 30-day ceasefire before the Putin-Trump talks and later backed the more limited ceasefire on energy attacks. Though after Russia launched its air strikes early on Wednesday, Zelenskiy insisted the world stop any attempts by Russia to drag out the war.
“Russia is attacking civilian infrastructure and people – right now,”
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said.
What damage did the latest attacks cause in Ukraine?
Ukrainian regional authorities in Sumy in the northeast of Ukraine stated that Russia’s drone attacks harmed two hospitals there, causing no wounds but causing the evacuation of patients and hospital staff. A 60-year-old man was wounded and several houses harmed in a Russian drone strike on the Kyiv area that encircles the Ukrainian capital, Mykola Kalashnyk, governor of the region, stated.
Zelenskiy stated that Russia launched more than 40 drones against Ukraine in the hours following the talk between Trump and Putin. The Ukrainian military stated on Wednesday its air defence units intercepted 72 of 145 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks. It also said that 56 drones were downed. “The Russian attack affected Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv and Chernihiv regions,” the military said.
Russia’s defence ministry said that its units destroyed 57 Ukrainian drones overnight, 35 of them over the border Kursk region. The ministry reports only how many drones were destroyed, not how many were launched by Ukraine.
What was the impact of the Ukraine attack?
On the other hand, authorities in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar stated early on Wednesday that a Ukrainian drone attack caused a small fire at an oil station located near the village of Kavkazskaya.
No one was harmed in the fire, which extended across 20 square metres (215 square feet), but 30 workers were evacuated, the management of the southern Russian region stated in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “The work at the facility has been suspended,” the administration declared.
The Russian news agency SHOT said the Kavkazskaya oil transhipment point is an essential facility designed to ferry Russian oil for exports via railway and into the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline system.
The aviation regulator of Russia Rosaviatsia stated that for a couple of hours overnight, flights were discontinued from airports in Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Nizhnekamsk, Russia, all hundred of kilometres east of Moscow, to “ensure air safety”.
