{"id":647744,"date":"2026-10-07T18:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T18:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/647744\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T18:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T18:08:17","slug":"zelenskiy-says-russian-bombing-was-birthday-gift-for-putin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/647744\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskiy says Russian bombing was birthday gift for Putin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> has accused Russia<\/a>\u2019s military of deliberately killing civilians and bombing residential buildings as a macabre gift for Vladimir Putin<\/a>, who celebrates his 74th birthday on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Ukraine<\/a>\u2019s president described Russia\u2019s overnight drone and missiles strikes, which killed at least 15 people, as \u201cdespicable\u201d. \u201cThe Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Video showed a ballistic missile slamming into a five-storey apartment block in the town of Pryluky in the northern Chernihiv region. The concrete building collapsed, entombing those inside. Nine people died, including three children, officials said, with 38 people injured.<\/p>\n

Rescuers picked through the rubble in an attempt to find survivors. \u201cToday, on Putin\u2019s birthday, the Russian army \u2018presented\u2019 him with the destruction of a residential block in Pryluky. It was an ordinary five-storey block of flats,\u201d Zelenskiy wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that Ukraine was struggling to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles, and appealed to allies to provide US-manufactured Patriot interceptors. \u201cAir defence packages for us right now are a vital necessity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"RescuersRescuers and volunteers carry a body of a local resident following a Russian attack on Pryluky. Photograph: Genya Savilov\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

The bombardment featured 70 ballistic missiles, as well as 46 jet-powered drones, which in recent weeks have been terrorising Ukrainians on a daily basis. Ukraine\u2019s air force said it managed to down just over 80 per cent of the fast-moving drones \u2013 an improvement on the previous average of 50 per cent to 60 per cent.<\/p>\n

Eleven regions were hit. Two people were killed in Kyiv, with other deadly strikes in the central cities of Kremenchuk and Oleksandriia, where four civilians died. There was also extensive damage in Dnipro.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russian generals had given Putin his favourite birthday present: \u201cwar crimes\u201d. Moscow\u2019s grim strategy of bombarding the country\u2019s population so it capitulated would not work, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ukrainian people are not going to give up, because it\u2019s about Ukraine\u2019s survival as a nation and as a state,\u201d he said. The \u201cultimate\u201d present would be a dock in The Hague, home to the International Criminal Court, where the Russian president would stand trial, Sybiha said.<\/p>\n

One resident in Kremenchuk said the attack happened early on Wednesday. The woman told Ukrainian media: \u201cWe were making tea in the morning. My husband was getting ready for work. And that was it. I found myself on the floor. What can I say? It was very scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local people in Dnipro said a blast wave affected 16 buildings, blowing out doors and windows. One woman, Iryna, said her auto parts workshop had been hit for the sixth time. The ceiling collapsed in Wednesday\u2019s strike, she said, with toilets, sinks and equipment damaged.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe explosion happened around three in the morning. We were sleeping at home. Everyone was scared, probably the whole city heard it. We will restore the shop and continue to work,\u201d she told the Suspline channel.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy said Ukraine had carried out its own long-range strikes on economic and military sites inside Russia. He said they included two oil complexes and a training ground in the \u2060Perm, \u200bSamara \u200cand Astrakhan \u200cregions. \u201cThese are \u200cjustified Ukrainian responses to \u200ball Russian attacks on \u2060our people,\u201d \u200bhe said.<\/p>\n

The president posted dramatic video of a burning oil tanker close to the southern resort city of Sochi. Russian officials said naval drones had hit the Liberian-flagged ship, adding that \u201ccrude oil was burning openly on the Black Sea\u201d. Its Indian crew of 23 was rescued, they said.<\/p>\n

Both sides have heavily targeted commercial shipping around the Black Sea since Putin\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022. In recent weeks Russia has picked off vessels carrying Ukrainian grain, paralysing maritime traffic from Ukraine\u2019s southern ports including Odesa.<\/p>\n

\"CrewCrew members from a vessel struck by drones in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone arrive at the port of Varna after being rescued on Tuesday. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Earlier this week, a civilian cargo ship sank after a suspected attack by Russian drones in the Black Sea. Its crew is still missing. <\/p>\n

A second vessel carrying grain was also hit while sailing in Bulgaria\u2019s exclusive economic zone, said the Bulgarian prime minister, Rumen Radev. The search for survivors was called off on Wednesday, according to vice-admiral Rumen Nikolov of the Maritime Administration Executive \u2060Agency. \u201cThere are no \u200btraces of the sailors from the \u200cfirst ship, and there will \u200cbe none,\u201d he said. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Russia\u2019s military of deliberately killing civilians and bombing residential buildings as a macabre gift…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[69542,42,43,18121,3589,40,38,41,39,9688,58419],"class_list":["post-647744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bulgaria","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-romania","tag-russia","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine-crisis","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}