KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a series of overnight ballistic missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, officials reported Thursday, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow was “hesitant” about another round of U.S.-brokered truce talks.
Zelensky said late Wednesday that Washington proposed that Russian and Ukrainian delegations hold further talks next week in Miami or Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, the site of the last meeting.
He said Ukraine “immediately confirmed” its attendance. “As far as I know, Russia is hesitant so far,” Zelensky told reporters in an interview on a messaging app late Wednesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that another round of talks was expected “soon” but gave no further details.
U.S. officials have not commented on the possibility of further talks as part of the Trump administration’s year-long peace efforts. Zelensky said last week that the United States has given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach an agreement.
But with the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor later this month, differences between Moscow and Kiev over key issues have hampered a comprehensive settlement. Issues include who keeps the Ukrainian lands that Russian forces have so far occupied, particularly the eastern industrial heartland of Donbass, and Moscow’s demands that Kiev hand over more territory.
Zelensky said Ukraine wanted Western-backed security guarantees, including a date for joining the European Union, and a post-war reconstruction plan before it could consider signing a proposed 20-point reconciliation deal.
Russia strikes hard at civilian areas
Zelensky said that at the same time, Russia continued to attack civilian areas in Ukraine, including residential areas and power grids, and Moscow did not respond to the United States’ proposal for an “energy ceasefire” that would also prevent Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged Russia to stop attacks on power infrastructure, reminding Moscow in a statement that international humanitarian law prohibits attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Russia launched 219 long-range attack drones, 24 ballistic missiles and a guided aircraft missile into Ukraine on the night between Wednesday and Thursday, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
The air force said the main targets were the Ukrainian capital Kiev, second city Kharkiv, Dnipro in central Ukraine and the southern port city of Odessa – all of which were bombarded mercilessly.
In Dnipro, Russian air strikes injured four people, including a 4-year-old girl and a newborn boy, regional chief Oleksandr Hanzha wrote on Telegram.
Several residential buildings were damaged and two people were injured, according to the Kyiv city government.
Odessa district chief Oleksandr Hanzha wrote on Telegram that a high-rise residential building was partially destroyed and a market and supermarket caught fire, injuring one person.
Temperatures in Kiev have risen above freezing, but it’s still bitterly cold inside the city.
Oleksii Kuleba, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for recovery, said that after the attack in Kiev, there were 2,600 buildings without heat in addition to 1,100 buildings in the capital that were unheated due to previous attacks.
In Odessa, nearly 300,000 residents were without running water, while in Dnipro, central heating systems stopped working for about 10,000 people, Kuleba said.
Ukrainian drone flies the farthest
Ukraine has retaliated by launching long-range strikes against military targets and oil refineries that account for a large portion of Russia’s revenue.
Ukraine’s military general staff said on Thursday that one of its domestically produced long-range drones struck the Ukhta oil refinery in Russia’s Komi region, about 1,750 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
An official with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told The Associated Press that this was the first flight of a Ukrainian drone to date. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Ukrainian General Staff also said that a domestically produced long-range “Flamingo” missile hit one of the Russian military’s largest missile, ammunition and explosive storage locations in the Volgograd region, triggering a major explosion.
Separately, Ukrainian troops attacked and caused a fire at the Michurinsk Progress Factory in Russia’s Tambov region, a defense company that produces high-tech equipment for aviation and missile systems, the General Staff said.
The Ukrainian military also confirmed that the Volgograd refinery was damaged in an attack the day before.
In other developments:
First lady Melania Trump helped reunite a small group of Russian and Ukrainian children separated from their families by the invasion, the White House announced Thursday.
Kremlin children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova said five children – four boys and one girl, aged 4 to 15 – were reunited with their families in Ukraine, while one child was returned to his family in Russia.
Lvova-Belova is wanted by the International Criminal Court for allegedly deporting children from Ukraine.
This is the first lady’s third such family reunion.
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Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/Russia-ukraine
