Russia attacked a civilian factory in western Ukraine owned by the US company Flex Ltd, causing a massive fire and injuring at least 15 people. Local authorities said that at approximately 4:40 a.m. local time, two Russian cruise missiles struck the company's premises in Mukachevo.

"It was an ordinary civilian business, supported by American investment, producing everyday goods like coffee machines," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on social media Thursday.

Russia resumed its large-scale attacks deep inside Ukraine after a three-week pause ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's summit with his US counterpart in Alaska on August 15.

Following that meeting, President Donald Trump walked back his threat to increase sanctions against Moscow unless it halted its full-scale invasion. European leaders and Zelenskiy visited Washington on Monday as Trump continued his efforts to broker an end to Russia's war, now in its fourth year. The US president is pushing for a bilateral meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin later this month, while Kyiv's European allies and Washington are discussing security guarantees for Ukraine.

"Russia is carrying out this attack as if nothing has changed at all, as if there are no global efforts to stop this war," Zelenskiy said, citing the attack on Mukachevo as evidence that more pressure is needed to force Russia into "substantive negotiations."

Flex, which is traded in the US, is one of the world's leading electronics manufacturing services companies, with factories in 30 countries. Its factory in Mukachevo opened in 2012 and employs thousands of people, local authorities say. "This is not the first Russian attack on American businesses in Ukraine, following the attack on Boeing's Kyiv office earlier this year and other attacks," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.

The attack was the first in the city since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. Mukachevo is located in Ukraine's westernmost region of Zakarpattya, about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Russian border and just 40 kilometers from the border with Hungary, a NATO and European Union member state. (alg)

Source: Bloomberg