An aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday a US call for Ukraine to hold an election after agreeing to a ceasefire with Russia looked like a ’failed plan’ if that was all it consisted of, though more details were needed.
Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing 15 people and damaging dozens of residential buildings as well as energy infrastructure across the country, said Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine and Russia traded blame for a deadly missile strike on Saturday that killed at least four people in the dormitory of a boarding school situated in a part of Russia’s Kursk region held by Kyiv forces.
Ukraine says US push for truce, elections will fail unless it consists of more
An aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday a US call for Ukraine to hold an election after agreeing to a ceasefire with Russia looked like a “failed plan” if that was all it consisted of, though more details were needed.
President Donald Trump’s top Ukraine official Keith Kellogg told Reuters the US wanted Ukraine to hold elections, potentially by the end of the year, especially if Kyiv can agree on a truce with Russia in the coming months.
“We haven’t seen Mr Kellogg’s full interview, only a few quotes about the elections, so it’s hard to fully assess his position,” said Dmytro Lytvyn, Zelensky’s communications adviser.
“But if his plan is just a ceasefire and elections, it is a failed plan — Putin won’t be intimidated by just those two things,” he told Reuters in a written statement.
Kyiv has repeatedly said it does not want a ceasefire without obtaining security guarantees that would stop Moscow from regenerating its forces and launching another invasion in the future. Elections are currently prohibited under martial law, which Ukraine imposed after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Lytvyn said Ukraine would prefer to see what he described as a more in-depth approach by officials in key partners.
“But we remember that President Trump, in his meetings with President Zelensky, spoke deeply and wisely about the situation and what could actually pressure Putin,” he said.
Russian air attack kills 15 in Ukraine, gas infrastructure targeted
Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing 15 people and damaging dozens of residential buildings as well as energy infrastructure across the country, said Ukrainian officials.
In the central city of Poltava, Ukraine’s Emergency Services said a Russian missile had struck a residential building, killing 11 people and wounding 16, including four children.
They said 22 people were rescued from rubble and emergency crews worked well into the night. Rescue teams carried out the dead on stretchers.
Firefighters and dozens of rescuers were searching through the rubble and carrying the dead out on stretchers.
One retired military veteran, certain his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter had died on the first floor of the building, waited outside the building all day, checking with rescue teams as they brought bodies past on stretchers.
In Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast, one person was killed and four were wounded in a drone attack, said the mayor.
Three police officers were killed during the attacks as they patrolled streets in a village in the northeastern region of Sumy, said regional officials.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Russian forces launched 123 drones and more than 40 missiles. Its air defence units shot down 56 of the drones and redirected 61, it said. The Air Force provided no figures on how many missiles were intercepted.
In Poltava, around 120km from the Russian border, about 18 apartment buildings, a kindergarten, and energy infrastructure were damaged, said city authorities.
Ukrainian officials said that damage was also registered in the city of Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, Kharkiv and Sumy regions in the northeast, and Khmelnytskyi in the west.
Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said Russian forces used six missiles and 17 Shahed drones to target gas infrastructure and other facilities.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said that its forces had launched attacks aimed at Ukraine’s gas and other energy infrastructure and had shot down 108 Ukrainian drones in the last 24 hours, Russian news agencies reported.
Ukraine, Russia accuse each other of deadly strike on boarding school
Ukraine and Russia traded blame for a deadly missile strike on Saturday that killed at least four people in the dormitory of a boarding school situated in a part of Russia’s Kursk region held by Kyiv forces.
Some of the war’s fiercest battles in recent months have been taking place in the Kursk region that borders Ukraine, where Kyiv forces have held swathes of the land since staging a major cross-border incursion last August.
Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia had launched an aerial bomb from Russian territory that struck a boarding school in Sudzha, killing at least four. The boarding school housed people preparing for evacuation.
As of 10pm on Saturday, 84 people had been rescued or received medical assistance, according to the statement. Four of the injured were in serious condition. Rescue efforts to clear rubble were proceeding.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said early on Sunday on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had launched “a targeted missile strike on a boarding school in the city of Sudzha” from Ukrainian territory.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called the strike a “terrorist attack” and vowed to bring Kyiv to justice.
Russia’s acting governor of the Kursk region, Alexander Khinshtein, also blamed Kyiv forces for the strike and said there was no reliable information yet about the number of potential victims.
Ukrainian drone attacks kill two in Russia’s Belgorod
Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine came under multiple Ukrainian drone attacks on Sunday, and two civilians were killed, said the regional governor.
One man was killed in the village of Malinovka about 8km east of the border overnight, said Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Several other settlements came under Ukrainian attack on Sunday morning. Later in the day, a woman died in hospital and another civilian suffered injuries after a passenger car came under a drone attack, said Gladkov.
Ukrainian men charged over killing of army draft officer
Ukrainian prosecutors charged two men on Sunday over the killing of an army draft officer in the central Poltava region, leading a top general to call for swift punishment as he warned of growing disrespect towards members of the military.
One of the suspects, who was being driven to a military training centre on Friday with other conscripts, called an acquaintance who then arrived at the scene and shot dead one of the accompanying officers, said the prosecutor general’s office.
The two men fled but were arrested a few hours later, said the office, adding that police had seized a hunting rifle, ammunition and two cases of hand grenades from the alleged shooter.
One suspect was charged with obstructing the military and murder, and the other with aiding and abetting military obstruction.
Ukraine’s war mobilisation campaign has been in the spotlight as military analysts and Western officials describe Ukraine’s manpower shortage at the front as a key battlefield weakness.
The call-up effort has been marked by faltering enthusiasm for service amid reports of draft-office corruption, poor training and instances of weak battlefield command, and attacks on draft officers or recruiting centres are not uncommon.
Putin ally heads for India for ‘important’ negotiations
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairperson of Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said on Sunday that he was leaving for India for a series of “important” talks.
“We will be in New Delhi by nightfall, important meetings and negotiations are planned tomorrow,” Volodin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in a post on his Telegram messaging app.
“India is a strategic partner. We have long-standing relations of trust and mutually beneficial cooperation with it. It is necessary to develop contacts in all areas.”
Putin says ignoring Soviet role in liberation of Nazi death camps is shameful
Putin said that ignoring the Soviet Union’s role in liberating Nazi German death camps such as Auschwitz and not inviting surviving family members of Soviet troops to liberation anniversaries was a shameful act.
A commemoration to mark 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz camp in Poland by Soviet troops was attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Zelensky, Britain’s King Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish President Andrzej Duda and many other leaders.
Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, was not invited due to the war in Ukraine.
“This is such a strange, shameful thing to do,” Putin told Russian state television in an interview released on Sunday.
As Soviet forces pushed back Nazi troops in Europe in 1944 and 1945, they liberated a number of death camps including Majdanek, Auschwitz, Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück. US troops liberated Buchenwald and other camps while British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen and other camps. DM