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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has cast doubt over whether renewed peace talks with Russia, set to take place next week in the Turkish city of Istanbul, will yield results.
He said on Friday that Kyiv is still waiting for Russia to clarify its proposals ahead of the talks, which are set to take place on 2 June.
Andrii Yermak, a top adviser to Zelenskyy, said Friday that Kyiv was ready to resume direct peace talks with Russia but that the Kremlin should first provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the more than three-year war.
Zelenskyy said that Russia was “undermining diplomacy” by withholding the document.
“Neither we in Ukraine nor Turkey, as the host country, have any information about Russia’s so-called ‘memorandum.’ For some reason, the Russians are hiding this document. It is a completely strange position,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Friday.
Russian strikes on Ukraine continue
As uncertainty remains about a new round of peace talks, Russia strikes have continued to hit Ukraine.
Officials said Russia’s drone and missile attacks on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least two people, including a 9-year-old girl.
Russian troops launched some 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets without causing damage, it said.
A 9-year-old girl was killed in a strike on the front-line village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhzhia region, and a 16-year-old was injured, Zaporizhzhia governor Ivan Fedorov said.
“One house was destroyed. The shockwave from the blast also damaged several other houses, cars, and outbuildings,” Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
Another man was killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kherson region, local governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
Moscow did not comment on either attack.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Saturday that it had gained control of the Ukrainian village of Novopil in the Donetsk region, and took the village of Vodolahy in the northern Sumy region. Ukrainian authorities in Sumy ordered mandatory evacuations in 11 more settlements as Russian forces make steady gains in the area.
The new additions bring the total number of settlements under evacuation orders in Sumy, which borders Russia’s Kursk region, to 213.
Meanwhile, 14 people were injured including four children after Ukrainian drones struck apartment buildings Saturday in the Russian town of Rylsk and the village of Artakovo in the western Kursk region, according to local acting governor Alexander Khinshtein.
Additional sources • AP
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