Ukrainian President Yanukovych spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of extending a 72-hour strike planned to strike Kyiv in order to prepare for the arrival of US envoys in Moscow. The temporary halt seeks to aid further diplomatic efforts to halt Russia’s full-scale military intrusion into Ukraine, after US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow on Saturday.
The White House’s Witkoff and Kushner were greeted in Moscow by Russian ambassador Kirill Dmitriev. Last time the delegation was in the Kremlin was in January. The American envoys will then go to Ukraine’s capital on Sunday after their meetings in Russia. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced that Ukraine would put a pause on airstrikes during the visit of the envoys and demanded that Moscow do the same.
In spite of the diplomatic effort, both sides have stepped up their aerial warfare in recent time. Russian forces have stepped up their air attacks on Ukraine’s cities, including Kyiv, with drones that fly at high speeds, powered by jet propulsion and in short range, in order to take advantage of the relative lack of air defense systems in Ukraine. Shortly, a drone was fired upon the Ukranian Security Service headquarters in Kyiv, Ukraine, by Russians. The intelligence agency is a key coordinator for deep-strike operations inside Russian territory. Ukraine, meanwhile, is continuing to hit Russian military bases and oil refineries with long-range missiles to disrupt Russia’s war effort.
Diplomacy has ground to a halt, and heavy casualties and damage to infrastructure are accumulating in numerous areas. The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation said it had struck two metallurgical plants in the Dnipropetrovsk region which were “significant” in Ukraine’s military production. In this attack, five civilians and five others were killed in an industrial facility.
Emergency services in the Mykolaiv region in the south of Ukraine had to repeatedly evacuate to safety, as the territory of a shopping center in the region was repeatedly hit by drones, wounding a 72-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. Other strikes in the Boryspil and Kyiv districts caused fires and damaged apartments. Zelensky specifically tied the Boryspil airport protests with plans for the U.S. delegation to travel to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired off a total of 167 attack drones, Shahed missile-type and decoy planes during the overnight strikes. Of the 128 drones that came in, 128 were shot down or suppressed by Ukrainian air defenses. Ukrainian rebels have also struck Russian forces, injuring three in the Belgorod region, according to Russian officials, who also said they had downed 53 Ukrainian drones overnight in the region.
