More than 100 Russian drones targeted areas of Ukraine on Wednesday (May 13, 2026), President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, hours after another barrage of missiles killed at least eight people.

“Russia continues its strikes and is doing so brazenly deliberately targeting our railway infrastructure and civilian sites in our cities,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

The overnight strikes targeted Ukraine’s residential and railway infrastructure in the central Dnipro and northeastern Kharkiv regions, port infrastructure in the southern Odesa region, and energy facilities in the central Poltava region, according to Mr. Zelenskyy. On Tuesday (May 12, 2026), he said, 14 regions came under attack throughout the day.

“It is important to support Ukraine and not remain silent about Russia’s war. Every time the war disappears from the top of the news, it encourages Russia to become even more savage,” Mr. Zelenskyy said, in an apparent reference to world attention being gripped by the Iran war.

Moscow’s attacks on its neighbour are unrelenting, even as Ukraine is emboldened by its recent military accomplishments and as U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin claim without providing evidence that the war could be approaching the end.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin talk of a possible end to the war. Mr. Trump said on Tuesday (May 12, 2026) that he believes Moscow and Kyiv will soon reach a deal to end fighting.

“The end of the war in Ukraine, I really think, is getting very close,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for a summit in Beijing. “Believe it or not, it’s getting closer.” Mr. Putin said in a speech last weekend that his invasion of Ukraine is possibly “coming to an end.”

Neither leader elaborated on what persuaded them about the possibility of peace in Europe’s longest conflict since World War II. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts over the past year to end the war have fizzled after making no progress on key issues, such as whether Russia gets to keep Ukrainian land and what can be done to deter Russia from invading again.

Meanwhile, European governments are assessing the merits of opening talks with Mr. Putin. Europe has for years tried to isolate the Russian leader and punish his country with international sanctions.

War appears to shift in Ukraine’s favour. The correlation of forces in the war has shifted in recent months. Ukraine has gone from pleading for international help with its defence to offering foreign countries expertise on how to counter attacks, thanks to its domestically developed drone technology.

Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile attacks have disrupted energy facilities and manufacturing deep inside Russia, with three Russian regions reporting strikes on Wednesday (May 13, 2026). The Russian Defence Ministry said that its air defences intercepted and destroyed 286 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula, the Azov Sea and the Black Sea.

On the 1,250-kilometre (780-mile) front line, the advance of Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army has been slowing every month since last October, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Russia’s spring offensive has floundered, with Russian forces recording a net loss of territory last month for the first time since 2024, the Washington-based think tank said.

“Not only are Ukrainian defensive lines holding, but Ukrainian forces have managed to contest the tactical initiative in several areas of the front line even as Russia continues to lose disproportionate amounts of manpower to achieve minimal gains,” the ISW said Tuesday (May 12, 2026).

The Kremlin repeated ​Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that the war in Ukraine was almost ‌over on Tuesday (May 12, 2026), after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ​said Moscow had no intention of ending ⁠it.

“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Mr. Putin told reporters on Saturday (May 9, 2026) of the war, now in ‌its fifth year.

Asked to comment on Putin’s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a certain amount ‌of trilateral work with Ukraine and the United ‌States ⁠had been done towards finding a peace deal.

“This ⁠accumulated groundwork in terms of the peace process allows us to say that the completion is indeed approaching,” Mr. Peskov told reporters, though he ​added that it was ‌difficult to provide specific details at the current time.

On Monday, Mr. Zelenskyy said, “Russia has no intention of ending this war. And we are, unfortunately, preparing for new attacks.”

U.S. President ‌Donald Trump has convened multiple rounds of talks ​with the warring sides to try to end the conflict, but no peace deal has ⁠emerged. Russia, which now occupies around a fifth of Ukraine, wants Kyiv to cede additional territory. Kyiv wants Russian troops ‌to withdraw.

Mr. Peskov said Russia would welcome further “U.S. mediation efforts” and Putin was prepared to meet Mr. Zelenskyy in person once the “peace process” was finalised.

“And for that finalisation, in order to put a full stop to it, a great deal of preparatory work still needs ‌to be done,” he said, adding that the conflict could end ​as soon as Kyiv and Mr. Zelenskyy “take the necessary decision”.

The warring sides agreed to a short, U.S.-mediated ceasefire ⁠from May 9-11, coinciding with the anniversary of the Soviet ⁠victory over the Nazis in World War Two.

Although neither side reported large-scale airstrikes during the ceasefire, ‌both said fighting continued along the front line and accused each other of drone and artillery attacks.

Kyiv came under drone attack on Tuesday (May 12, 2026) after the expiration of a three-day truce with Russia, according to Ukrainian authorities.

“Enemy UAVs are currently over Kyiv. Please stay safe until the alert is cleared,” the head of the capital’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko posted on Telegram.

The alert siren was the first confirmed in the capital since Friday (May 8), before the ceasefire came into force. Kyiv’s regional military administration told residents to remain in shelters and said its air defences could be operating in the area.

A three-day truce was announced on Friday (May 8) by U.S. President Donald Trump, just hours before Russia’s World War II victory celebrations, with Mr. Trump saying he hoped the ceasefire would mark “the beginning of the end” of the conflict.

The two countries had traded accusations of attacks on civilians that violated the truce, which Mr. Trump had said would be in place May 9-11.

The European Union on Monday (May 11, 2026) imposed sanctions on 16 officials accused of helping Russia to abduct tens of thousands of children from Ukraine and force many to change their identities or be put up for adoption.

Sanctions were also slapped on seven centres suspected of indoctrinating the children or training them to serve in the armed forces, either for Russia or pro-Russian militias inside Ukraine.

Over 130 people and “entities” are now under EU travel bans and asset freezes over the abductions.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, about 20,500 children have been unlawfully deported or forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian-held territories in eastern Ukraine.

“Russia is trying to erase their identity,” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze said on Monday at a meeting with EU counterparts in Brussels, where the sanctions were endorsed.

“When you look at the Genocide Convention, it’s one of the features of the genocide crime. So, it’s very serious.” The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions.

Around 2,200 children have been returned, but identifying them is complicated. Children taken at a young age can be difficult to recognise just a few years later. Getting them home is a harrowing task, and some children are not necessarily welcomed when they return.

The EU on Monday was hosting, alongside Canada, a meeting of the 47-country International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children to increase diplomatic pressure on Russia and rally support for work to verify and trace those who are taken.

“War has really many faces, but stealing the children is really one of the most horrific,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said ahead of the gathering. “We should stop this, and Russia should pay.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday (May 9, 2026) said the war in Ukraine was winding down, slamming Western support for Kyiv, as the first day of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire was marked by mutual accusations of violations.

Mr. Putin spoke after telling soldiers at the scaled-down parade in Moscow that they were fighting an “aggressive force” in Ukraine, backed by all of NATO and describing his war goals as “just”.

The Russian leader has made the memory of the Soviet victory over Germany in World War II a central narrative of his 25-year rule and repeatedly invoked it to justify his Ukraine offensive.

Russian authorities typically mark the Victory Day parade with pomp and grandeur. But a spate of Ukrainian long-range attacks in recent weeks prompted the Kremlin to ramp up security measures and downsize this year’s celebrations.

When asked after the parade whether the Western military aid to Ukraine had gone too far, Mr. Putin said, “They started ratcheting up the confrontation with Russia, which continues to this day.

“I think it (the conflict) is heading to an end but it’s still a serious matter,” he added. “They spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for its statehood to collapse. It didn’t work out.”

“And then they got stuck in that groove and now they can’t get out of it,” Mr. Putin said, referring to the Western countries.

Mr. Putin added he was ready to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a third country only once all conditions for a potential peace agreement were settled.

“This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,” he said.

Ceasefire violations

After two failed attempts at truces this week by both Russia and Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday (May 8, 2026) announced that a three-day ceasefire between both sides would come into effect from Saturday (May 9, 2026).

Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations of violations, but no major strikes were reported, despite continued drone activity and civilian casualties on both sides.

“Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard-fought War,” Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social network, adding the ceasefire would be accompanied by a prisoner exchange.

The Kremlin said that as of now there were no plans to prolong the truce.

The warring sides also agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each during the truce. But Mr. Putin said on Saturday (May 9, 2026) that Russia had not yet received any proposals from Ukraine on the exchange.

U.S.-mediated talks on ending the fighting have shown little progress since February, when Washington shifted focus to its war against Iran.

Russian ​drones and ‌missiles attacked gas ​production ⁠facilities run by Ukraine’s ‌state energy ‌company Naftogaz ‌in ⁠Poltava and ⁠Kharkiv regions, killing three ​employees and ‌two rescue workers, the company’s ‌chief executive ​said on Tuesday (May 5, 2026).

The facilities ⁠were significantly damaged ‌and production was lost, CEO Serhiy Koretskyi ‌said.

Russia on Monday (May 4, 2026) declared a unilateral ceasefire with Ukraine between May 8 and May 9, when Moscow marks its annual World War II Victory Day commemorations, and threatened a “massive missile strike” on Kyiv if Ukraine violated it.

Ukraine responded by declaring a truce of its own between May 5 and May 6, saying it was “not serious” to expect it to observe a ceasefire during a Russian military holiday.

Russian drone strikes on Ukraine killed three people across the country, while Ukrainian attacks killed one near Moscow and targeted Russia’s lucrative oil facilities, according to statements by the warring countries on Sunday (May 3, 2026).

The two neighbours have been firing hundreds of explosive-packed drones at each other on a daily basis throughout the four-year war, as talks to end the conflict have gone nowhere.

Hezbollah has launched a new weapon against northern Israel in the latest round of fighting: small drones controlled with fibre-optic cables the width of dental floss that avoid electronic detection.

These drones — used widely in the war in Ukraine — are small, hard to track and potentially lethal.

Many drones are susceptible to electronic jamming by air defences. Jamming can cause a drone to crash or return to its point of origin.

U.S. President Donald Trump ‌said on Sunday (April 26, 2026) he has “good ​conversations” with Russian President ⁠Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he aims to settle ‌the Russia-Ukraine war.

“We’re working on the Russia ‌situation, Russia and Ukraine, and ‌hopefully ⁠we’re going to get ⁠it,” Mr. Trump said in an interview on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.”