Ukraine’s air defence units were trying to repel a Russian air attack on the capital Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said early on Sunday on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine resisted US and Russian pressure to commit to attending another round of peace talks on Monday, saying it first needed to see Russian proposals, while a leading US senator warned Moscow it would be “hit hard” by new US sanctions.
US President Donald Trump has urged Moscow and Kyiv to work together on a deal to end their three-year-old war, and Russia has proposed a second round of face-to-face talks with Ukrainian officials next week in Istanbul.
Kyiv has said it is committed to the search for peace, but that it was waiting for a memorandum from the Russian side setting out their proposals.
“For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on X on Friday after hosting Turkey’s foreign minister for talks in Kyiv.
“Unfortunately, Russia is doing everything it can to ensure that the next potential meeting brings no results,” he said, citing the lack of a document from Russia.
Delegations from the two countries met in Istanbul on May 16 but the session yielded little other than an agreement for a prisoner exchange.
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Zelenskiy said he and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday discussed in a phone call the conditions under which Ukraine would participate in the Monday meeting proposed by Russia.
“There must be a ceasefire to move further toward peace. The killing of people must stop,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.
“We share the view that this meeting cannot and should not be empty,” Zelenskiy said.
He did not commit Ukraine to attending on Monday, although he said he and Erdogan did discuss the possibility of organising a four-way meeting with the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United States.
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