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Russian attacks killed five people in Ukraine overnight, as Moscow and Kyiv await the arrival of U.S. envoys to begin a new push for peace in the Kremlin’s 4 1/2-year-old invasion.
The planned visit by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, is hoped to revive peace talks as both sides escalate their aerial attacks.
The last known visit to Moscow by Witkoff and Kushner was in January, when they met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. They have never visited Kyiv, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was expecting them in the Ukrainian capital on Sunday. He said that the pair would be in Moscow beforehand, but did not specify when. The Kremlin on Friday refused to confirm Kushner and Witkoff’s visit, saying instead that journalists would be informed when a meeting took place.
Zelenskyy urges a halt to air attacks during envoys’ visits
The air war between Russia and Ukraine has intensified as troops have struggled to make progress along the 1,250-kilometer (775-mile) front line. Russia has recently been using fast-flying, jet-powered drones, and the recurring wail of air-raid sirens has become part of daily life in Kyiv.
The strikes come even as Zelenskyy said Friday that Ukraine would halt air attacks during Witkoff and Kushner’s visit and urged Moscow to do the same. Moscow did not publicly respond to the proposal.
In a social media post on Saturday, Zelenskyy said that Russia had carried out overnight strikes on Kyiv and Boryspil international airports, and linked the attack to the planned U.S. visit.
“Clearly, these Russian strikes on the airports are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility of the U.S. side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine,” he said.
“We have taken note of this Russian move, and next week we will adjust our operation accordingly regarding Russian airspace, which has become dangerous because of our drones and missiles in the sky. Of course, there are and will be no threats to diplomacy from our side.”
Strikes kill 5 at Ukrainian industrial site
Russian attacks killed five people and wounded five more at an industrial facility in Ukraine’s southern Dnipropetrovsk region, local military administration head Oleksandr Hanzha said. He described those killed as employees at the site. “A locksmith, an electrician, a plumber and a machinist. People of peaceful professions. They were simply working their shift. They were doing their job when enemy missiles cut off their lives,” he said.
A 62-year-old man was wounded and several homes and an apartment building were damaged in a separate attack on the region’s Nikopol district, Hanzha said.
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In a statement Saturday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it had carried out strikes on two metallurgical plants in the region, describing them as “major suppliers of metal products for Ukraine’s military production.”
A further two people were wounded in an overnight Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kyiv region, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration. In the Boryspil district, a fire sparked by a strike partially destroyed a nine-story residential building.
Russian forces also repeatedly struck a shopping center in the southern Mykolaiv region with drones overnight, damaging retail premises and sparking fires, Ukraine’s state emergency services said. A 72-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl were hurt.
Emergency crews responding to the incident were repeatedly forced to withdraw to safety because of the threat of further strikes, returning whenever conditions allowed, the emergency services said.
Russia launched ballistic missiles from its Rostov and Voronezh regions and deployed 167 attack drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. The drones included Shahed-type aircraft — around half of them jet-powered — as well as Geran and decoy drones. Ukrainian air defenses shot down or suppressed 128 drones, according to the air force.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian attacks wounded three people, including a 14-year-old girl, in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, local officials said.
In a statement, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that its forces had shot down 53 Ukrainian drones overnight.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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