2 weeks Ago By Nicholas Cecil
Vladimir Putin rejected Donald Trump ’s plea to stop attacks on Ukraine as five people were killed in new drone strikes. The latest civilian casualties came as the US president’s envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Friday where he is expected to meet Putin who has so far rebuffed Washington’s calls for a Ukraine ceasefire. Mr Witkoff has emerged as America’s key interlocutor with Putin as Trump pushes for a deal to end the war in Ukraine, and has already held three long meetings with the Russian president.
His latest visit to Moscow comes a day after Trump criticised a Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv that killed at least 12 people, and posted on social media: “Vladimir, STOP!” But the US president’s plea did not stop the bloodshed, with five people, including a child, killed in renewed Russian attacks on Ukraine, officials said on Friday. Three of the victims were killed in the city of Pavlohrad after a drone strike, said Serhiy Lysak, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region. “The aggressor again conducted a mass attack on the region with drones ,” Mr Lysak stressed.
He said that 14 people were wounded in the attack on a five-storey building, including a six-year-old boy and teenagers, aged 15 and 17. Donetsk regional prosecutors said separately that two people had been killed in an attack early on Friday on the settlement of Yarova, where the Russian army reportedly dropped an aerial bomb on a residential building. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 103 drones in overnight attacks across Ukraine, causing damage in five regions.
Despite the ongoing attacks, Trump is claiming there had been significant progress in peace talks. “This next few days is going to be very important. Meetings are taking place right now,” he said on Thursday.
“I think we’re going to make a deal ...
I think we’re getting very close.” But military and diplomatic experts have cast doubt on whether Russia and Ukraine can agree a deal to end the war which Putin launched more than three years ago. Trump has been accused of siding with Putin and putting pressure on Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to make major concessions.
Britain has rejected the US president’s claim that Kyiv is the obstacle to peace, with Sir Keir Starmer condemning Putin as the “aggressor”. Trump has threatened to walk away from peace efforts if Ukraine and Russian do not agree to a deal soon. Amid accusations that Russia is stalling over peace moves as its forces make gains on the battlefield, while suffering heavy losses, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the talks were “moving in the right direction” but “some specific points .
.. need to be fine-tuned.
” The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, conceded that Ukraine may have to give up land as part of a peace deal with Russia. “One of the scenarios is..
. to give up territory. It’s not fair.
But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” he told the BBC. After talks with Trump in Washington, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Thursday that Kyiv was working hard for a deal. “There is something on the table now I think, where Ukrainians are really playing ball, and I think the ball is clearly in the Russian court now,” he stressed.
The US administration is reportedly urging Kyiv to accept Russia’s continued control of occupied Ukrainian regions and to accept Moscow’s ownership of the Crimean peninsula as part of a peace settlement. But Mr Zelensky has rebuffed suggestions he could cede Crimea to Moscow..
