Air defense crews in the capital were racing to combat a large-scale bombardment before dawn on Friday, officials said.

An analysis by multiple experts of new video and satellite images suggests that at least 11 Russian bomber aircraft and one large transport plane were badly damaged or destroyed in Ukraine's drone attack on Sunday.

But halting progress, ever-more deadly drone attacks and unmoving negotiating positions seem to have taken their toll. On Thursday, Trump used a striking analogy to concede the warfare was nowhere near over, and that he did not, at that moment, feel it was best to intervene.

Trump told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that Russia and Ukraine were fighting like children in a park and might not want to be pulled apart yet.

Following his talk with Putin, Trump expressed understanding for Russia’s need to retaliate against Ukraine’s drone strike against its bomber fleet.

President Trump said during his phone call with Vladimir Putin that he compared the war in Ukraine to a fight among children, suggesting they ‘fight for a while.’ Trump also said he warned Putin not to retaliate against Ukraine over its recent drone attack on Russian bombers.

Costing as little as $400 apiece, Kyiv’s flying machines are successfully neutralizing sophisticated Russian equipment worth thousands of times more

The Ukrainian operation was “grounds for a nuclear attack,” declared Vladmir Solovyov, a firebrand host on Russian state TV, calling for strikes on the Ukrainian presidential office in Kyiv, and beyond.