U.S. President Donald Trump sharply criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin in late May 2025 after Russia launched what Ukrainian authorities described as the largest aerial assault of the war at that point, while also saying he was considering additional sanctions on Moscow.
The criticism followed an overnight Russian barrage of 367 drones and missiles across Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said at least 12 people were killed and 60 were wounded, including three children killed in the Zhytomyr region. The attack struck areas including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Ternopil and Khmelnytskyi.
Russia launched 367 drones and missiles
According to Reuters reporting on the May 25 attack, Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 298 drones and 69 missiles. It reported that 266 drones and 45 missiles were intercepted or otherwise prevented from reaching their intended targets.
The scale made it the largest Russian aerial attack of the war by the number of weapons launched up to that date, although earlier individual strikes had produced higher death tolls.
Four people were reported killed in the Kyiv region, while the capital itself recorded injuries but no deaths. In Khmelnytskyi region, four people were killed and five wounded. A drone strike in Mykolaiv killed a 77-year-old man and injured five other people, according to regional officials cited by Reuters.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said drones struck three districts of the northeastern city and injured three people, while explosions damaged windows in residential buildings.
Trump intensifies criticism of Putin
Speaking to reporters in New Jersey on May 25, Trump said he was unhappy about the mounting death toll and questioned why Putin was continuing to launch attacks on Ukrainian cities.
He later escalated his criticism in a Truth Social post, saying Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY†and arguing that the Russian leader appeared to want control of all of Ukraine rather than only territory already occupied by Russian forces.
Trump also said he was considering additional sanctions against Russia. At that stage, however, he had not announced a new sanctions package in response to the attack.
The following day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded by suggesting that Trump's language reflected the intense emotions surrounding the conflict. At the same time, the Kremlin thanked Trump and the United States for their role in restarting direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, according to Reuters.
Zelensky calls for stronger pressure on Moscow
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky argued that insufficient international pressure was encouraging further Russian attacks and called for tougher sanctions against Moscow.
Ukraine and several European governments had been pressing Russia to accept an immediate 30-day ceasefire. Kyiv had publicly accepted the proposal, while Moscow had not agreed to an unconditional 30-day halt and said the terms of any ceasefire would need to address broader Russian demands.
Trump had spoken with Putin on May 19 in a roughly two-hour call. Afterward, Trump said Russia and Ukraine would begin negotiations toward a ceasefire and an eventual end to the war. Putin said Russia was prepared to work with Ukraine on a memorandum outlining elements of a possible future peace settlement, but no ceasefire timetable was agreed during the call.
Direct talks had produced a prisoner exchange, not a ceasefire
The attack came shortly after Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul on May 16 for their first direct talks since 2022. Those negotiations did not produce a ceasefire but did result in an agreement for each side to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war.
The exchange was carried out in stages as the large-scale aerial attacks continued. Both governments also agreed to prepare their own proposals describing possible terms for further negotiations.
Russia maintained that any settlement would have to address what it describes as the underlying causes of the conflict. Ukraine and its European partners rejected demands that would restrict Ukraine's sovereignty or formally recognize Russian territorial claims.
Trump also criticizes Zelensky
Despite directing unusually strong criticism at Putin, Trump also criticized Zelensky's public statements, saying the Ukrainian president's rhetoric was creating problems.
Zelensky did not directly answer that criticism in his subsequent address. Instead, he argued that the continuing Russian strikes demonstrated that Moscow was not seriously moving toward peace and again called for greater international pressure.
Russia said its strikes were directed at military targets and described some of its attacks as responses to Ukrainian drone operations inside Russia. Ukraine has also carried out long-range drone attacks against Russian military and industrial targets. Claims about particular targets and battlefield effects from either side have often been difficult to verify independently in real time.
The broader diplomatic effort remained unresolved
The May 2025 confrontation occurred during an intensifying U.S.-led effort to negotiate an end to the war launched by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Despite direct talks, prisoner exchanges and repeated diplomatic initiatives, no general ceasefire emerged from that round of negotiations.
Subsequent diplomacy also failed to end the fighting. As of September 2026, Russia's war in Ukraine was continuing, with long-range drone and missile attacks, ground combat and renewed U.S.-backed efforts to arrange negotiations among Moscow, Kyiv and Washington.
Russia continues to occupy internationally recognized Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which Moscow seized and annexed in 2014 in a move rejected by Ukraine and most of the international community, as well as additional areas occupied following the 2022 full-scale invasion.
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