Just days after President Donald Trump met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska — and then met in Washington with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in an effort to jump-start peace talks — Russia launched one of its largest airstrikes of the war.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, two Russian cruise missiles struck an American-owned electronics factory in far western Ukraine. The strike was part of a massive overnight fusillade: more than 570 drones and 40 missiles fired across the country, according to Ukrainian officials. One civilian was killed in Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said at least 15 people were wounded in the factory attack, describing the plant as an “ordinary civilian enterprise, an American investment” that produced everyday appliances such as coffee machines. “The Russian military delivered this strike as if nothing had changed at all,” he wrote on Telegram, “as if there were no efforts by the world to stop this war.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, echoed the sentiment, calling the factory “a fully civilian facility that has nothing to do with defense or the military.”
Western Ukraine, typically targeted less often than other regions, bore the brunt of the barrage. Ukraine’s military reported intercepting most of the incoming weapons, but some got through, per NPR.
The U.S. factory hit
The missiles struck Flex, a global electronics manufacturer headquartered in Austin, Texas, and Singapore with more than 100 factories and offices worldwide. Flex has operated in western Ukraine since 2012.
Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, visited the damaged facility and said the strike was “destroying and humiliating American business” in a post on X. He urged Trump to “stand with American business and confront Vladimir Putin’s campaign of destruction.”
According to Hunder, about 600 employees were on shift when the missiles hit, but safety protocols enabled everyone to reach shelter in time. Myroslav Biletskyi, head of the regional military administration, said the toll would have been far higher otherwise. Even so, he noted a third of the sprawling plant burned down. “This enterprise exclusively produced household appliances. It never produced any military equipment,” Biletskyi said, reported NPR.
Largest strike in weeks
Ukraine’s air force said the attack was Russia’s largest since July 12 and broke the pattern of smaller nightly barrages earlier this month. It was only the fourth time during the war that Russia launched more than 500 drones in a single night, according to figures analyzed by ABC News.