United States President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in Moscow for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, hours after Russia killed at least five people in Ukraine.
A child was among three people killed overnight on Friday in Russian drone attacks on central Ukraine’s industrial city of Pavlohrad, according to Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
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He said 14 people were also wounded in the attack on a five-storey building, including a six-year-old boy and teenagers, aged 15 and 17. Five of the wounded remained in hospital, he added.
Two more people were killed on Friday morning in Donetsk region’s Yarova settlement, where an aerial bomb was dropped on a residential building, according to Donetsk regional prosecutors.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 103 drones in overnight attacks across Ukraine, causing damage in five regions.
Lysak said 11 drones were destroyed over the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Kyiv, noted that Ukrainians are unlikely to view the meeting between Witkoff and Putin positively.
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“They see Witkoff and even Donald Trump as parroting Russian propaganda,” he said, highlighting the Ukrainian frustration with US diplomatic efforts.
“Ukraine and its allies in the EU and elsewhere agree that they cannot continue negotiating or be expected to agree to terms while there is no ceasefire, and their cities are still being bombed overnight,” Basravi added.
Ukraine has stressed that its priorities in negotiations remain firm: The preservation of territorial integrity and the halting of Russian aggression.
Kyiv strongly rejected the US proposal for Ukraine to accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the US-proposed peace deal with Ukraine is “moving in the right direction” but acknowledged that certain aspects of the deal still require “fine-tuning”.
In a preview of an interview scheduled to air on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, Lavrov responded to a question about Trump’s comments that the deal was “very close” and should “finally be done”.
Lavrov agreed, stating, “The president of the United States believes – and I think rightly so – that we are moving in the right direction.”
He added, “We are ready to reach a deal, but there are still some specific points that need to be fine-tuned. We are busy with this exact process.”
Hanna Shelest, director of security programmes at the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”, noted that Ukraine’s red lines are clear.
“It’s about the territorial integrity of the country, and no one will tell us which alliance our armed forces should join. That’s only logical, especially since no one has provided us with security guarantees,” she said.
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Shelest pointed out that Ukraine’s strategy is to build a broad international coalition.
“Even before Trump became president, it was clear that Ukraine cannot rely on just one major partner; we need to build the largest coalition possible,” she said.
“Ukrainians definitely want a ceasefire, but not a surrender,” she added.
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