Discussions are approaching as Russia is launching a drone attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing three people.
The United States had to meet Ukraine Russian delegations separately in Saudi Arabia on Monday in an ongoing attempt to arrest the three-year war, Russia launched a drone attack Friday evening on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing three people and injuring 12, announced Ukrainian officials.
The city was affected by 12 drones, police said. Regional Governor Ivan Fedorov said residential buildings, cars and municipal buildings had been burnt down. Photos of the scene have shown emergency services traveling the rubble for survivors.
Ukraine and Russia agreed this week in principle a limited ceasefire after US President Donald Trump had separate calls for consecutive days with countries, but real objectives would be prohibited to attack remains controversial.
The three sides seemed to have very different views on what the limited truce has covered. While the White House said that “energy and infrastructure” would be part of the agreement, the Kremlin said that the agreement was referring more closely to “energy infrastructure”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would also like railways and ports to be protected.
Zaporizhzhia’s dead included three family members. The bodies of the girl and the father were removed from the rubble while the doctors fought without success for the life of the mother for more than 10 hours, wrote Fedorov on the Telegram messaging application.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia had drawn 179 drones and lures in the last wave of attacks during the night after Saturday. He said that 100 were intercepted and 63 others lost, having probably been blocked electronically.
Officials from the kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions also reported that fires are bursting due to the fall in debris of intercepted drones.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said its air defense systems had shot 47 Ukrainian drones. Russian officials also declared that Moscow reserves the right to a “symmetrical response” while the two parties accused Friday of exploding a Russian petrol pumping station in a border area where the Ukrainian troops withdrew.
“As in 2022, provocations were used again in order to disrupt the negotiation process. We clearly warn that if the kyiv regime continues its destructive line, the Russian Federation reserves the right to respond, including with a symmetrical response,” said the ministry.
Zelenskyy told journalists after his call on Wednesday with Trump that Ukraine and American negotiators would discuss technical details related to the partial ceasefire at Monday meeting in Saudi Arabia. Russian negotiators must also organize separate discussions with US officials.
Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine is open to a full 30-day ceasefire that Trump has offered, saying: “We will not be against any format, steps to the unconditional ceasefire.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin made a complete conditional cease-fire on an end of weapons supplies in kyiv and a suspension of the military mobilization of Ukraine-requests rejected by Ukraine and his Western allies.
“We hope to achieve at least some progress,” the Russian delegation said on Saturday, Russian senator Grigory Karasin, who will lead the Russian delegation.
He said that he and his colleague negotiator, the adviser to the Federal Security Service (FSB), Sergey Beseda, would take a “combative and constructive” mood in the talks.
A senior Ukrainian official told the AFP news agency a day earlier that kyiv hoped to obtain a “at least” agreement on a partial cease-fire covering attacks against energy, infrastructure and at sea.
“We go to the mood to fight for the solution of at least one problem,” Karasin told Zvezda, who belongs to the Russian Ministry of Defense. He said that his delegation was leaving for Saudi Arabia on Sunday and would be back on Tuesday.
The choice of Russia negotiators for talks raised questions because Karasin and Bhenaa are outside traditional diplomatic decision -making institutions such as the Kremlin, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense.
Karasin is a career diplomat who now sits in the High Chamber of Russia in Parliament while Beeda is a longtime officer of the FSB and now advisor to the Director of the Service.
The FSB in 2014 admitted that Beeda was in kyiv during a bloody repression in the Ukrainian capital on the mass demonstrations of the Pro-European Union called the uprising of Maidan.
