Ukraine’s drone attack kills three, targets Moscow
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Three people have been killed in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s Tula and Nizhny Novgorod regions, with Moscow also targeted, Russian officials say.
Two people died and two were hospitalised following an overnight attack on the Tula region that borders the Moscow area, Tula governor Dmitry Milyaev said on the Telegram messaging app.
One person was killed and two others were hospitalised following a Ukrainian attack targeting an industrial zone in the Nizhny Novgorod region in western Russia, Gleb Nikitin, the governor of the region, said on Telegram.
Russian air defence units destroyed a total of 59 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 12 over the Tula region and two over the Moscow region.
The ministry only reports how many drones its units down, not how many Ukraine launches.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes on each other’s territory. But thousands of civilians have died in the war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Alaska to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
A White House official has said Trump is open to Zelenskiy attending, but preparations are under way for only a bilateral meeting.
Putin last week ruled out meeting Zelenskiy, saying conditions for such an encounter were “unfortunately still far” from being met.
Trump said a potential deal would involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both (sides)”, compounding Ukrainian fears it may face pressure to surrender land.
Zelenskiy says any decisions taken without Ukraine will be “stillborn” and unworkable.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland and the European Commission have said any diplomatic solution must protect the security interests of Ukraine and Europe.
“The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Sunday.
“Any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security.”
EU foreign ministers will meet on Monday to discuss next steps, she said.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told US network ABC News that Friday’s summit “will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing this terrible war to an end”.
“It will be, of course, about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to acknowledge that Ukraine decides on its own future, that Ukraine has to be a sovereign nation, deciding on its own geopolitical future.”
Russia holds nearly a fifth of the country.
Rutte said a deal could not include legal recognition of Russian control over Ukrainian land, although it might include de facto recognition.
He compared it to the situation after World War II when Washington accepted that the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were de facto controlled by the Soviet Union but did not legally recognise their annexation.
Zelenskiy said on Sunday: “The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today.”
A European official said Europe had come up with a counter-proposal to Trump’s, but declined to provide details. Russian officials accused Europe of trying to thwart Trump’s efforts to end the war.
“The Euro-imbeciles are trying to prevent American efforts to help resolve the Ukrainian conflict,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted on social media on Sunday.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a vituperative statement that the relationship between Ukraine and the European Union resembled “necrophilia”.
Reuters
