At least two people, including a nine-year-old girl, have been killed in attacks by Russian drones and missiles on Ukrainian territory, according to official sources.
This comes amid ongoing uncertainty over the participation of Kyiv diplomats in a new round of peace talks proposed by Moscow for early next week in Istanbul.
Russian forces launched 109 drones and five missiles into Ukrainian territory overnight and Saturday, the Ukrainian air force said.
Three missiles and 42 drones were shot down, and another 30 drones did not reach their targets and did not cause damage, the department added.
As a result of shelling of the frontline village of Dolinka in the Zaporizhia region, a girl was killed and a 16-year-old teenager was injured, reported the governor of the Zaporizhia region Ivan Fedorov.
“One house was destroyed. The shock wave from the explosion also damaged several other houses, cars and outbuildings,” he wrote on Telegram.
A man was killed as a result of Russian shelling in the Kherson region of Ukraine, Governor Alexander Prokudin reported on Telegram.
Moscow has not yet commented on any of the attacks.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that control had been established over the Ukrainian village of Novopol in the Donetsk region and that the village of Vodolahy in the northern Sumy region had also been taken.
Ukrainian authorities in Sumy have ordered mandatory evacuations in 11 more settlements as Russian troops advance steadily in the area.
As a result of the new additions, the total number of settlements subject to evacuation in Sumy, which borders Russia's Kursk region, has reached 213.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 50,000 Russian troops were concentrated in the area to launch an offensive aimed at creating a buffer zone on Ukrainian territory.
Speaking on Saturday, Ukrainian Army Commander Oleksandr Syrsky noted that Russian troops had concentrated their main efforts on Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Liman in the Donetsk region, as well as in the border region of Sumy.
Mr Syrsky also said that Ukrainian forces still hold territory in Russia's Kursk region, something Moscow has repeatedly denied.
On April 26, Russia said it had withdrawn all Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region after Kyiv's forces occupied territory there in a surprise invasion in August 2024.
“The enemy concentrated his best units here,” Mr. Syrsky said, referring to Kursk, “which he planned to use in the east.”
Fourteen people, including four children, were injured in Ukrainian drone attacks on residential buildings in the Russian city of Rylsk and the village of Artakovo in the western Kursk region on Saturday, acting regional governor Alexander Khinshtein said.
Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Mr Zelensky, said on Friday that Kyiv was ready to resume direct peace talks with Russia in Istanbul on Monday, but the Kremlin must first provide a promised memorandum outlining its position on ending the more than three-year war.
Mr Zelensky said Russia was “undermining diplomacy” by withholding the document.
“For some reason, the Russians are hiding this document. This is an absolutely strange position. There is no clarity on the format,” he wrote on Telegram.
Moscow had previously said it would share its memorandum during the talks.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
