Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on US President Donald Trump to enact sanctions against Russia amid its deadly attacks across Ukraine, which have become increasingly frequent as cold weather starts to set in.
“Russia is escalating every single day,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media on September 26. “We ask President Trump to implement the Lindsey Graham Act against Russia and everyone who props up its war financially.”
The law, signed by Trump a week ago, gives the president sweeping new authority to impose sanctions and tariffs on Russia, its energy sector, and foreign governments and entities that help Moscow evade existing restrictions.
Zelenskyy said that Russia’s latest strikes on Ukraine killed at least four people in the Zaporizhzhya and Sumy regions, partly occupied by Russian forces, and left more than a dozen more injured across the country.
Civilian and energy infrastructure was damaged in at least eight Ukrainian regions, including a kindergarden in the capital, Kyiv, and a university in the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, he added.
In Zaporizhzhya, fire swept through the city’s central market following the attack, local resident Olena told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service — the place where she had worked for more than 25 years is now covered in charred debris.
“The people won’t come here anymore, that’s for sure…. All the goods reeked of smoke,” Olena said at the scene, adding that she would now have to relocate and search for a new place to work.
Medics carry a wounded person to an ambulance at the site of destroyed private houses hit during a Russian drone strike on Zaporizhzhya.
With a fifth wartime winter approaching, Russian strikes on Ukraine have become a daily occurrence.
Over the past four years, Moscow has sought to pressure Kyiv into accepting its hard-line demands by pounding the country’s energy infrastructure and leaving thousands without heat or electricity amid freezing temperatures.
Since this summer, however, Kyiv has increasingly responded to Russian attacks with a campaign of long-range strikes targeting military and energy sites inside Russia.
The campaign has left Russia with nationwide fuel shortages and has stoked discontent among its citizens, who were largely disconnected from the war in Ukraine.
In the latest such strike on September 26, Ukrainian forces said they had hit the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, describing the facility as helping fuel Moscow’s war effort.
US Seeking Diplomatic Settlement
The developments came amid what appears to be renewed US interest in negotiating a diplomatic settlement to the long-running war, with the White House reportedly seeking to find a solution before winter.
At their latest meeting in New York this week, Zelenskyy told Trump he “hoped” that Washington would help to end the war “as soon as possible.”
The Ukrainian president had told journalists that Washington had proposed holding what would be the first Ukraine-Russia-US meeting in many months at a relatively low “technical level,” with the United Arab Emirates serving as host.
While there was no immediate confirmation from the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that all peace proposals were “on the table” but added that Moscow had to weigh its interests.
Control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region has been a central sticking point since US-led peace efforts began under the Trump administration in 2025.
Russia has vowed to seize the territory by force if Ukraine refuses to cede the areas it still holds, making Donetsk a major military priority.
