(MENAFN) Intense Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine have left at least seven people dead, including two children, according to Ukrainian authorities. The latest wave of strikes came just hours after US President Donald Trump announced that his planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest had been postponed, saying he did not want a “wasted meeting.”

Officials reported that a kindergarten was among the sites struck in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, while widespread damage was also recorded in the capital, Kyiv. In total, 27 people were injured, many of them children.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the renewed attacks demonstrated that Moscow has not been subjected to sufficient international pressure to end its war. The Kremlin, however, rejected fresh appeals for a ceasefire along existing front lines from both Washington and European leaders.

Despite Trump’s remarks about the summit being shelved, Russian officials insisted on Wednesday that preparations were still underway. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that a date for the talks had yet to be finalized but confirmed that a meeting remained “the mutual desire of both presidents,” dismissing reports of its cancellation as “gossip and rumours.”

Zelensky, meanwhile, arrived in Norway on Wednesday as part of a European tour. The trip followed his recent meeting with Trump in Washington, where his appeal for the supply of long-range Tomahawk missiles was unsuccessful. Speaking in Oslo, the Ukrainian leader described Trump’s proposed front-line freeze as “a good compromise, but I'm not sure that Putin will support it and I said it to the president.”

He also linked the summit delay to his unfulfilled missile request, stating: “As soon as the issue of long-range missiles became a little further away for us, for Ukraine, then almost automatically Russia became less interested in diplomacy.”

The overnight bombardment coincided with reports that Ukraine had struck a Russian chemical plant in the Bryansk border region using UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. Ukrainian military officials described it as “a successful hit” that breached Russian air defenses, claiming the facility “produces gunpowder, explosives and rocket fuel components used in ammunition and missiles employed by the enemy to shell the territory of Ukraine.”

The latest assault marked the first large-scale attack on Kyiv in nearly two weeks. In the capital, a couple in their 60s were killed when a drone hit their apartment building, while four others died in the surrounding region. Among the dead were a 36-year-old woman, a six-month-old baby, and a 12-year-old girl after a strike ignited their home in the village of Pohreby, north of Kyiv. A man from the same area later succumbed to his injuries.

In Kharkiv, officials reported that a 40-year-old man died and seven others were wounded after a drone hit a kindergarten. Children were among the injured, and dozens were evacuated from the site.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 405 drones and 28 missiles overnight, including 15 ballistic missiles. The capital remained under air raid alerts for hours, with explosions shaking residential neighborhoods as rescue teams worked to contain fires.

Across the country, Russian attacks again targeted key energy facilities, prompting emergency power outages in multiple regions. One Kyiv lawmaker, Inna Sovsun, said the overnight strikes were clearly aimed at the power grid, explaining that “for the majority like myself it means we don't have electricity and we don't have water.”

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