Kiev and several other Ukrainian regions have been targeted by a new massive attack of Russian drones and missiles, including Kinzhal hypersonic, with a balance of two deaths and 15 injured, according to Volodymyr Zelensky. While there are still no official signals on a possible recovery this week – as proposed on Saturday by the Ukrainian president – of the negotiations between Moscow and Kiev started between May and June in Istanbul. But the Kremlin said he did not exclude a summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in September in China. The Ukrainian aeronautics said that during the night between Sunday and Monday the Russians launched 426 drones and 24 missiles, including five hypersonic. Damages are reported in the regions of Ivano-Frankivsk, in the west of Ukraine, in that of Kharkiv, in the north-east, and Kiev.
The mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said that several fires broke out, including one in a nursery school. Zelensky denounced what he called attacks “against humanity”. “We must continue to enhance the interceptors, this is the solution that will allow us to protect us from massive attacks,” said the president, returning to ask the western allies “a real pressure on Russia” to “stop this aggression”.
The Russian Ministry of Defense affirmed by his part that “Ukrainian military-industrial complexes and infrastructure of military airports were affected in the bombings of the night”. The dicastery added in the raids made within 24 hours were also “destroyed three launch platforms of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system and an An/Mpq-65 US production multifunction radar station”. The Russian military leaders have made it known that from Sunday evening until Monday afternoon Ukrainian forces launched at least 107 drones against various Russian regions, of which 28 on that of Moscow. Traffic in one of the four international airports, that of Vnukovo, was briefly suspended.
The governor of the Rostov region made known that following other attacks a fire broke out in a railway station in the village of Kamenolomni. On a diplomatic level, “a source” cited by the Russian Agency Tass said that a new round – the third – of direct negotiations between Russian delegations and Ukraine could take place on 24 and 25 July in Istanbul. In the first two, the parties had reached agreements on the humanitarian level, in particular for the exchanges of prisoners, but there had been no progress on the peace process. The Kremlin, which last week had defined Zelensky’s intention to restore dynamism to the negotiating process “a positive signal”, did not confirmed the date of the new meeting.
“There is still a lot of diplomatic work to do,” said the spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, underlining that the memorandum with the respective proposals prepared by Russians and Ukrainians remain “absolutely diametrically opposed”. For a political solution of the Moscow conflict it places conditions that Kiev could very hardly accept: among these, the international recognition of belonging to Russia of four Ukrainian regions plus Crimea, annexed in 2014 and the proclamation of the neutrality of Ukraine, which would therefore renounce to enter NATO. While the signs that come from Moscow leave little room for optimism in negotiations with Kiev, the Kremlin does not exclude the possibility of a summit between Putin and Trump in less than two months. According to Peskov, in fact, the Russian president and the US one could meet in Beijing next September if Trump decided to participate in the celebrations for the 80/or anniversary of the victory in the Second World War. An event to which the Russian leader will be present.