Russian forces launched a large-scale drone and missile attack across Ukraine on Wednesday, killing at least 12 civilians, as Athens Mayor Steve Patterson highlighted the city’s ongoing relationship with its sister city, Ostroh, Ukraine.
The strikes targeted Kyiv, Odesa and Dnipro, hitting residential areas, according to United Nations News.
“According to Ukrainian officials, nearly 700 Russian drones were launched over the previous day and overnight, along with 19 ballistic missiles and additional cruise missiles – many aimed at the capital Kyiv,” United Nations News reported.
Athens established its sister city partnership with Ostroh in 2024 through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which encouraged U.S. cities to build ties with Ukrainian communities during the war.
Patterson, who has visited Ostroh twice, said the conflict has directly shaped his experience in the county.
During a combined 12 days in Ukraine, Patterson said he entered bombing shelters four times.
On June 6, 2025, when Patterson was in Kyiv for the 3rd International Summit of Cities and Regions, Russia launched a drone attack in Kyiv that lasted several hours.
“I remember sleeping for a couple of hours and then waking up to get ready to go to this meeting, and I looked out my hotel window, which was on the fifth floor, and I’m looking right down on the main street of their downtown right in the heart of the city, and it's just bustling with people and cars everywhere,” Patterson said. “It’s like nothing had happened because the Ukrainian people are so experienced in this, yet so resilient and have so much resolve.”
The war, which began Feb. 24, 2022, after Russia launched a full-scale invasion, has killed at least 15,578 civilians, including 784 children, according to United Nations Human Rights reports as of April 10. In March 2026 alone, short-range drones killed 66 civilians.
On Saturday, April 18, a gunman killed six people in Kyiv, according to The Associated Press.
“The 58-year-old attacker was not named by police, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was born in Russia, as authorities worked to piece together a motive for the violence,” the AP reported.
In an interview with ABC News, Ukraine’s Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture, Oleksii Sobolev, said an economic agreement between Russia and Ukraine was previously sanctioned, but political disagreements have stalled negotiations.
“We know that we can win this, to bring this to an end, to bring Russia to the negotiating table,” Sobolev said in the interview. “During the last month, we sent more long-strike drones to Russia than Russia did to Ukraine. This is the first time ever.”
In the U.S., Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday that the federal government will not renew the general license on Russian oil. Sobolev said this could help limit Russia’s drone production.
Locally, Patterson said Athens will continue its involvement with Ostroh despite larger political changes, including cuts to USAID funding.
In early 2025, the Trump administration cut $60 billion in funding towards the agency, and 10,000 USAID contracts were ended, according to the AP.
“USAID was set up as an organization that is providing goodwill to developing nations around the globe,” Patterson said. “When the person living in the White House decided to do this, it was just destroying those relationships that had been established, but I wasn't going to let our relationship with Ostroh change at all.”
Patterson said he hopes to return to Ostroh in September to visit a greenhouse project he personally funded at a primary school for students in a forestry club.
During his first visit in 2024, Patterson brought pawpaw tree seeds native to the Appalachian region. In June 2025, he joined three students in planting one of the trees the club grew in a pot.
“We planted it in the heart of their city park, which is right in the center of the city,” Patterson said.
