Russia attacked a civilian factory in western Ukraine owned by US company Flex Ltd, causing a massive fire and wounding at least 15 people.
Local authorities said that at around 4:40 a.m. local time, two Russian cruise missiles hit the company’s premises in Mukachevo.
“It was a regular civilian business, supported by American investment, producing everyday items like coffee machines,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Thursday on social media.
Russia resumed massive strikes deep inside Ukraine after a three-week pause ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summit with his US counterpart in Alaska on Aug. 15. Following that meeting, President Donald Trump backed down from his threats to increase penalties on Moscow unless it ceases its full-scale invasion.
European leaders and Zelenskiy visited Washington on Monday as Trump continues his bid to broker an end to Russia’s war, now well into its fourth year. The US president is pushing for a bilateral meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin by the end of the month, as Kyiv’s European allies and Washington discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.
“The Russians carried out this attack as if nothing has changed at all, as if there are no global efforts to stop this war,” said Zelenskiy, pointing to the strike on Mukachevo as evidence that more pressure is needed to force Russia to hold “substantive negotiations.”
Flex, traded in the US, is one of the world’s leading electronics manufacturing services companies, with factories in 30 countries. Its Mukachevo plant opened in 2012 and employs thousands of people, local authorities said.
“This is not the first Russian attack on American businesses in Ukraine, after strikes on Boeing offices in Kyiv earlier this year and other attacks,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.
The strike was the first on the city since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Mukachevo is located in Ukraine’s westernmost region of Zakarpattya, around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Russian border and just 40 kilometers from the frontier with Hungary, a NATO and European Union member state.
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