
A new round of Moscow’s shelling and drone attacks killed five people in Ukraine Sunday, authorities said, while Kyiv hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Saratov region.
There was no reduction in hostilities on the frontline, even as the United States and Russia agreed to hold a summit in a bid to resolve the conflict, which, so far doesn’t include Ukraine.
‘Three people killed, one wounded in Zaporizhzhia region as a result of Russian shelling,’ Ukraine’s national police said, adding that two more civilians died in the highly contested Donetsk region in the east.
Meantime, three beachgoers were killed in the Black Sea coastal city of Odesa, after they tripped on a mine while swimming in a prohibited area, which was mined to fend off a potential Russian navy attack.
The Ukrainian army claimed its drones had hit a large oil refinery in Russia’s western Saratov region, almost 1,000 kilometres away from the front line.
The Saratov governor, Roman Busargin, only gave a vague comment saying that ‘one of the industrial enterprises was damaged,’ adding that one person died as a result of the drone attack.
Another woman died in Russia’s region of Belgorod, often under Ukrainian fire due to its proximity to the frontline, the local governor said.
Kyiv is trying to hamper Moscow’s ability to fund the more than three-year war of attrition by attacking its oil and gas facilities, the key sources fuelling the state budget.
Ukraine’s military claimed to have taken back the village of Bezsalivka in the Sumy region from the Russian army, which has made significant recent gains.
The focus of the Russian offensive is on eastern Ukraine, where it has stepped up gains in recent months against its less well-equipped opponents.
Meanwhile, European leaders urged more ‘pressure’ on Russia overnight Saturday, after the announcement of a Trump-Putin summit to end the war in Ukraine raised concern that an agreement would require Kyiv to cede swathes of territory.
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will meet in the US state of Alaska this Friday to try to resolve the three-year conflict, despite warnings from Ukraine and Europe that Kyiv must be part of negotiations.
Announcing the summit last week, Trump said that ‘there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both’ sides, without elaborating.
But president Volodymyr Zelensky warned Saturday that Ukraine won’t surrender land to Russia to buy peace.
‘Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,’ he said on social media.
‘Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace,’ he added.
Zelensky urged Ukraine’s allies to take ‘clear steps’ towards achieving a sustainable peace during a call with Britain’s prime minister Keir Starmer.
European leaders issued a joint statement overnight Saturday to Sunday saying that ‘only an approach that combines active diplomacy, support to Ukraine and pressure on the Russian Federation to end their illegal war can succeed’.
They welcomed Trump’s efforts, saying they were ready to help diplomatically — by maintaining support to Ukraine, as well as by upholding and imposing restrictive measures against Russia.
‘The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations’, said the statement, signed by leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain, Finland and EU Commission chief Ursula Von Der Leyen, without giving more details.
They also said a resolution ‘must protect Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests’, including ‘the need for robust and credible security guarantees that enable Ukraine to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity’.
‘The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine,’ they said.
National security advisors from Kyiv’s allies — including the United States, EU nations and the UK — gathered in Britain Saturday to align their views ahead of the Putin-Trump summit.
French president Emmanuel Macron, following phone calls with Zelensky, Starmer and German chancellor Friedrich Merz, said ‘the future of Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukrainians’ and that Europe also had to be involved in the negotiations.
In his evening address Saturday, Zelensky stressed: ‘There must be an honest end to this war, and it is up to Russia to end the war it started.’
Three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine this year have failed to bear fruit.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with millions forced to flee their homes.
Putin, a former KGB officer in power in Russia for over 25 years, has ruled out holding talks with Zelensky at this stage.
Ukraine’s leader has been pushing for a three-way summit and argues that meeting Putin is the only way to make progress towards peace.
The summit in Alaska, the far-north territory which Russia sold to the United States in 1867, would be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.