[Source: Reuters]
Russia pounded Kyiv with ballistic missiles and Ukraine sent hundreds of drones towards Moscow on Thursday, as the warring sides kept up a barrage of attacks despite the latest US push to end the conflict.
Ukraine said Russia fired at least 21 ballistic missiles in three waves, and Zelenskiy said three of them carried cluster munitions — “bomblets” that disperse over a wide area and are banned by many countries because of the danger to civilians. Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russia pounded Kyiv with ballistic missiles and Ukraine sent hundreds of drones towards Moscow on Thursday, as the warring sides kept up a barrage of attacks despite the latest US push to end the conflict.
Ukraine said Russia fired at least 21 ballistic missiles in three waves, and Zelenskiy said three of them carried cluster munitions — “bomblets” that disperse over a wide area and are banned by many countries because of the danger to civilians.
Article continues after advertisement
Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Witkoff spoke of “some degree of momentum” after meeting Zelenskiy and European and NATO officials in Oslo earlier in the week, but the Kremlin expressed doubts.
“The Americans sensed some new nuances (in Oslo) and told us about this. But these nuances, so to speak, do not entirely satisfy us,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Thursday.
A senior Russian official, briefed on the results of the Putin-Witkoff talks, said they were relatively short and not substantive. The American brought a set of proposals drafted in Oslo and handed them to Putin for review, the person said.
Another source close to the Kremlin said the US proposals included a scenario where Ukraine would cede all of its Donbas region to Russia in return for receiving a guarantee of its future security from NATO.
Russia has said it launched the war, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two, in part to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.
Moscow has repeatedly said it would not end fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, limits the size of its forces and is permanently barred from forming alliances.
Ukraine, which says the invasion was an unprovoked war of conquest, has long dismissed Russia’s conditions as a demand for capitulation that would leave it defenceless against future Russian attacks.