KYIV: Russia targeted a US-founded electronics manufacturer near Ukraine’s border with the European Union in a major air attack on Thursday as President Volodymyr Zelensky sought US support to bring Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
The overnight attack, which included 574 drones and 40 missiles, was one of the largest of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, now in its fourth year.
One person was killed and 22 were wounded, most of them in the attack that damaged storage facilities at the electronics manufacturer in Ukraine’s far-Western Zakarpattia region, authorities said.
“It was a regular civilian business, supported by American investment, producing everyday items like coffee machines. And yet, it was also a target for the Russians,” Zelensky wrote on X.
“This is very telling.”
Mukachevo mayor Andriy Baloha said the damaged enterprise belonged to the US-listed company Flex Ltd. The corporate headquarters of the company, a global technology, supply chain and advanced manufacturing solutions partner, is in Austin, Texas and its registered office is in Singapore.
The company employed thousands of the area’s residents, Baloha said. Flex, which grew from a family firm founded in Silicon Valley in 1969, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, the attack killed one person, wounded three others and damaged 26 homes, said Governor Maksym Kozytskyi. Authorities in southeastern Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region also reported damage to businesses, homes and gas lines. Two industry sources told Reuters a key gas pumping facility had been attacked, without giving a location.
Russia said Putin had repeatedly said he was ready to meet Zelensky but that Ukraine was trying to undermine Trump’s efforts to resolve the conflict and its leader was illegitimate.
The defense ministry in Moscow said it had struck Ukrainian energy and airfield infrastructure as well as military industrial facilities overnight, and captured another frontline village — Oleksandro-Shultyne, Russian news agency RIA reported. Ukraine said it had hit a Russian oil refinery, a drone warehouse and a fuel base.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
SECURITY TALKS
US President Donald Trump met both Zelensky and Vladimir Putin over the past week in pursuit of a diplomatic end to the fighting but has acknowledged that his Russian counterpart may not want to make a deal. Zelensky urged Trump to react firmly if that was the case.
“We are ready. But what if the Russians are not ready?” he said in comments released on Thursday. “If the Russians are not ready, we would like to see a strong reaction from the United States.”
US and European military planners have begun exploring post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine, according to US officials and sources, but the path to peace remained uncertain.
A defense ministry source in Turkiye, which has opposed sanctions on Russia while also giving military help to Ukraine and joining a “Coalition of the Willing” to help it with post-conflict security, said peace was still far off.
“It is necessary to first secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, then determine the framework of a mission with a clear mandate, and clarify the extent to which each country will contribute,” the Turkish source said on condition of anonymity.
The Kremlin said Putin had discussed Ukraine with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, when Moscow also said attempts to resolve security issues without Russian involvement were a “road to nowhere.”
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready for an honest talk about security guarantees for Ukraine and accused Ukraine’s European backers of ‘adventurism’ by excluding Moscow from their discussions.
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has used missiles and drones to strike Ukrainian towns and cities far from the front lines throughout the war.
Thousands of civilians, the vast majority of them Ukrainian, have been killed since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of February 2022. More than a million Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are estimated to have been killed or wounded.
