Russia Intensifies Attacks on Ukraine as U.S. Steps Back

Russia has struck cities across Ukraine with increasingly intense aerial bombardments in recent days, attacks that come as President Trump appears to be stepping away from a diplomatic push to end the war.

Before dawn on Monday, scores of Russian drones swarmed the skies across Ukraine and bombers unleashed a heavy barrage of missiles against Ukrainian cities for the third straight night. Ukrainian officials said 30 people were killed and 163 injured in the attacks.

The campaign comes a week after President Trump spoke to President Vladimir V. Putin by telephone and appeared ready to abandon his efforts to secure a truce in the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say that dozens of people have been killed in stepped up attacks by Russia since then.

Analysts say that Russia is pressing its advantage as the United States — long the arsenal of Ukraine’s resistance — pulls back from the diplomatic process and refuses to supply Kyiv with much needed military assistance.

“For the last three years, for both good and ill, the policy choices in Washington had played an active, at times determinative, role in shaping the course of the war,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Britain. “The U.S. is slowly starving Ukraine of vital aid, which is very much understood and acted on by the Russians.”

Mr. Trump has condemned the latest Russian bombardments.

“I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin,” he told reporters before boarding Air Force One on Sunday. “I’ve known him a long time. Always gotten along with him. But he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.”