Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that only Russia is responsible for the war in Ukraine as drone strikes disrupted a Yandex data centre near Moscow.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Kyiv replace him, insisting that only Russia is responsible for the war. Writing on X, Zelenskyy said, “Ukraine will be ready to stop striking Russian oil refineries if Russia stops striking our energy infrastructure,” adding that de-escalation must be reciprocal and supported by real guarantees.
Zelenskyy also said it was “possible to stop strikes on energy infrastructure as early as today,” but that “Putin does not want to do so.” The remarks came after Trump said Saturday that Ukraine should get a “new leader who can make a deal,” blaming Zelenskyy for high diesel prices in the United States and saying he “could have made many deals and for some reason he never does.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha responded late Saturday on X, writing that Zelenskyy is leading Ukraine “through a war for its independence” and that “He has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide.”
While Ukraine and Russia continue a long-range aerial campaign, Kyiv also reported intensified efforts against infrastructure inside Russia. On Sunday, a drone attack shut down a Yandex data centre in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, marking the third strike on Yandex facilities in four days.
According to Russian independent news outlet Astra, the attack caused outages across Yandex services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities as well as users in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia unable to order taxis or access banking services. Yandex Cloud’s Telegram channel said the data centre’s infrastructure was damaged, that operations were “completely halted,” and that there were “no injuries.”
Russian residents described disruption to everyday activity in Moscow. Pavel Belyavskiy, a driver for Yandex Taxi, said it was unclear whether orders were coming through and that he had to cancel rides after waiting because he could not reach passengers. Another resident, Igor Mann, said he could not access Yandex Market after checking an order, and that using a VPN did not resolve the problem.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian officials said air strikes continued. Zelenskyy said search and rescue operations ended in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia after a Russian bombing on Saturday, with 23 people killed—including four children—and more than 30 wounded. Ivan Fedorov, the former regional head and co-chair of the regional defence council, said eight of the wounded remained hospitalized.
Separately, local officials said a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Bryansk border region killed one man and wounded two women.
On Thursday and Friday, Ukraine struck other Yandex facilities: a drone attack on Thursday took a Yandex data centre offline in Russia’s Ryazan region, and a day later Ukrainian drones hit the company’s major data centre in Russia’s Kaluga region, partly putting it out of action, Yandex said.
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