Russia unleashed a major missile and drone barrage on Ukraine overnight into yesterday, after US and Ukrainian officials said they would meet for a third day of talks aimed at ending the nearly four-year-long war.
Following talks that made progress on a security framework for postwar Ukraine, the two sides also offered the sober assessment that any “real progress toward any agreement” ultimately would depend “on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace.”
The statement from US special envoy Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov came after they met for a second day on Friday. They offered only broad brushstrokes about the progress they say has been made, as Trump pushes Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a US-mediated proposal to end the war.
Photo: Reuters
Russia used 653 drones and 51 missiles in the wide-reaching overnight attack on Ukraine, which triggered air raid alerts across the country and came as Ukraine marked Armed Forces Day, the country’s air force said yesterday morning.
Ukrainian forces shot down and neutralized 585 drones and 30 missiles, the air force said, adding that 29 locations were struck.
At least eight people were wounded in the attacks, Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said.
Among these, at least three people were wounded in the Kyiv region, local officials said.
Drone sightings were reported as far west as Ukraine’s Lviv region.
Russia carried out a “massive missile-drone attack” on power stations and other energy infrastructure in several Ukrainian regions, Ukraine’s national energy operator, Ukrenergo, wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant temporarily lost all off-site power overnight, the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday, citing its Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.
The plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service, but it needs reliable power to cool its six shut-down reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
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