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Ukrainian and Russian officials wrapped up a “productive” first day of new US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, Kyiv’s lead ‌negotiator said Wednesday, as fighting in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two ‌raged on. The two-day trilateral meetings come after ‍Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had exploited a US-backed energy truce last week to stockpile munitions, attacking Ukraine with a record number of ballistic missiles on Tuesday. “The work was substantive and productive, focused on concrete steps and practical solutions,” Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, ‍wrote on X.Shortly after the talks began, Russian forces struck a crowded market in eastern Ukraine with cluster munitions, killing at least seven people and wounding 15, the Donetsk region’s Governor Vadym Filashkin said. Umerov said he would prepare a report for Zelensky, and talks were expected to continue on Thursday, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Photographs released earlier in the day by the United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry showed the three delegations sitting around a U-shaped table, with US officials seated at the centre, ‌including special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump’s administration has pushed both Kyiv and Moscow to find a compromise to end the four-year-old war, but the two sides remain far ‍apart on key points despite several rounds of talks with US ‌officials. The most sensitive issues are Moscow’s demands that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which sits in a Russian-occupied area. Moscow wants Kyiv to pull its troops out of all of the Donetsk region, including a belt of heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine’s strongest defences, as a precondition for any deal. Ukraine said the conflict should be frozen along the current front line and has rejected any unilateral pullback of its forces. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russian troops would keep fighting until Kyiv made “decisions” that could bring the war to an end. Russia currently occupies about 20% of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion. Analysts say Russia ​has gained about 1.5% of Ukrainian territory since ‌early 2024. “Russia is not winning its war against Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told online media outlet Liga on Tuesday. He argued that Moscow was paying a heavy price in termsof ‍battlefield casualties and economic harm for small territorial advances. Polls show that the majority of Ukrainians oppose a deal that hands Moscow more land. Kyiv residents told Reuters on Wednesday they were sceptical that the new round of talks would bring any major breakthroughs. “Let’s hope that it will change (something), of course. But I don’t believe it will change anything now,” Serhii, 38, a taxi driver, told Reuters. “We will not give in, and ​they will not give in either.” The first round of talks was held in the UAE last month, marking the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed their ties during a video call on Wednesday held in the run-up to the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s war in Ukraine. 

Ukraine launched British Storm Shadow missiles and its domestically produced long-range drones to hit several Russian oil and gas facilities, Ukrainian military and security officials said Thursday.Ukraine has previously used the British-made missiles ⁠to attack Russian industrial targets ⁠that it says help Moscow's war.The Ukrainian General Staff said that the air force used Storm Shadow cruise missiles to strike the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia's Rostov region."Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit," the General Staff said on the Telegram app Thursday.It said the refinery was one of the biggest oil product suppliers in southern Russia and was supplying diesel and jet fuel to the Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.Ukraine's SBU security service ⁠said that the locally made long-range drones hit oil product tanks in the Russian port of Temryuk in the Krasnodar region and a gas processing plant in Orenburg in southwestern Russia.The Orenburg gas processing plant, the largest facility of its kind in the world, is located about 1,400km (about 870 miles) from the Ukrainian border.In the Krasnodar region, Russian regional authorities said that two oil product tanks caught fire at the southern port of Temryuk after the drone attack.Flames covered an area of about 2,000sq ⁠m, authorities at the Krasnodar operational headquarters said on the Telegram app.As Russia's war in Ukraine approaches its four-year mark and diplomatic efforts to end it have so far failed to produce any tangible results, both Kyiv and Moscow have stepped up their drone and missile attacks on energy facilities.Kyiv has increased its strikes on Russia's oil refineries and other energy infrastructure since August as it seeks to cut Moscow's oil revenues, a key source of funding for its war effort.The Ukrainian General Staff also said that Ukrainian troops hit a military airfield in the Russian city ⁠of Maikop in the republic of Adygea in the North Caucasus region.

Russia launched a new barrage of drones and missiles at the Ukrainian capital Kyiv Tuesday, officials said, killing seven people, wounding 21, and disrupting electricity and heating systems as Ukraine raced to finalise a US-backed peace deal.President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces launched more than 460 drones and 22 missiles, their second major strike on Kyiv this month. The air force said it had downed most of the drones and around half of the missiles."The primary targets were the energy sector and everything that keeps normal life going," Zelenskiy said in a post on the Telegram app. As Russia hit Kyiv in several waves of attacks, diplomatic talks on ending the war gained some momentum.Ukrainian, European, and US officials have held several rounds of talks in recent days, and Ukraine Tuesday signalled support for the framework for a peace deal while stressing that sensitive issues needed to be fixed."What matters most now is that all partners move toward diplomacy together, through joint efforts. Pressure on Russia must deliver results," Zelensky said, urging uninterrupted weapons and air defence supplies to Kyiv.Zelensky said that four Russian drones had flown over Ukraine's neighbours Moldova and Nato-member Romania. Romania said it had scrambled fighter jets to track drones which breached its territory near the border with Ukraine.Romania shares a 650-km land border with Ukraine and has had drones breach its airspace and fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly since Russia began attacking Kyiv's ports across the Danube.Ukraine's Energy Ministry said Russian strikes had disrupted electricity supplies to more than 102,000 people in five Ukrainian regions.Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the military administration for the capital, said damage was recorded at 13 sites across Kyiv. Residential and commercial buildings and infrastructure were damaged.Kyiv city officials also said heating supplies across several districts in the capital were restricted. The weather is unseasonably warm with temperatures hovering at about 8 degrees Celsius."The Russians are deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and housing. Cynical terror," Tkachenko said on Telegram.Moscow denies intentionally targeting civilians despite having killed thousands of them since launching its invasion in 2022. It says civilian infrastructure such as energy supplies are legitimate targets to hurt Ukraine's ability to fight.Ukrainian officials also said that port and energy infrastructure were damaged in the Black Sea port of Odesa, where six people were injured.

North Korea announced that it had successfully tested two hypersonic missiles.The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the missiles were launched from the Ryokpho district of Pyongyang, heading northeast, and struck a target on Kwesang Peak in Orang County, North Hamgyong Province.KCNA described the tests, which took place yesterday, as part of a “significant new weapon system,” noting that the two advanced missiles enhance North Korea’s strategic deterrence.This marks the fifth ballistic missile launch by North Korea this year, with the previous launch taking place in May.

Ukraine said Sunday that Russia pounded the country with "hundreds" of drones and missiles overnight, wounding at least 10 people, as neighbouring Poland scrambled jets to secure its airspace. The attacks came after Russia warned NATO against taking sterner action in response to alleged incursions into airspace covered by the military alliance.They also followed the revelation by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Kyiv had received a US-made Patriot air defence system from Israel for use against Russian assaults. "Russia launched another massive air attack on Ukrainian cities while people were sleeping," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said on X."Again, hundreds of drones and missiles, destroying residential buildings and causing civilian casualties," he said. He posted footage of flames bursting from the windows of a multi-storey apartment block, which Sybiga said was as a result of the attack.Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that the Ukrainian capital was under a "massive" assault and urged people to stay in shelters. He said at least six people had been wounded "as a result of the enemy's attack", five of whom were treated in hospital and one at the scene.The governor of the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region said Russian strikes there had wounded at least four people.Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential office, accused Moscow of waging a "war against civilians". "There will be a response to these actions. But the West's economic blows against Russia must also be stronger," Yermak said.Poland's armed forces said on X that they had scrambled fighter jets in its airspace and put ground-based air defence systems on high alert in response to the Russian strikes in Ukraine.The moves were preventive and aimed at securing Polish airspace and protecting citizens, especially in areas close to Ukraine, the forces said. 'They will regret it'In recent weeks, several European countries have accused Russia of violating their airspace with drones and fighter jets, in what NATO has viewed as a test of its resolve.Russia has denied that it is responsible for the incursions or that it plans to attack any NATO nation.Speaking during an address at the UN General Assembly in New York on Saturday, Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response".Speaking later to reporters, Lavrov said that if any country downs objects still within Russian airspace, "they will very much regret it".After returning from his own trip to New York, where he also addressed the UN, Zelensky told reporters that "the Israeli (Patriot) system is operating in Ukraine", adding that Kyiv would receive two more this autumn.While initially neutral in the conflict, Israel's ties with Moscow have cooled as Russia has drifted closer to Iran and condemned Israel's war in Gaza.Kyiv and Moscow also said on Saturday that the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant -- Europe's largest -- had been off the grid for four days, stoking fears of a potential nuclear incident.

Russia fired 40 missiles and around 580 drones at Ukraine in a "massive attack" — one of the largest in past weeks — killing three people and wounding dozens, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday.Despite US-led attempts to broker peace, Russia has been shelling Ukraine with drones and missiles and Kyiv has blamed Moscow for deliberately stalling any peace efforts.In the overnight attacks, "a missile with cluster munitions directly struck an apartment building" in the eastern city of Dnipro, Zelensky said on social media."All night, Ukraine was under a massive attack by Russia. The enemy launched 40 missiles — cruise and ballistic — and about 580 drones of various types," Zelensky said."As of now, we know of dozens of people injured from the shelling, and, unfortunately, three people killed," he added.Sergiy Lysak, the head of the military administration in the Dnipropetrovsk region, said the strikes killed one person and wounded 26, with one man in a serious condition.Vyacheslav Chaus from the regional administration in Chernigiv in northern Ukraine, said a 62-year-old man died in a drone attack.Ukraine issued a nationwide air alert, with officials reporting other strikes in the region around the capital Kyiv.Around 20 residential buildings were damaged in the Khmelnytskyi region, local official Sergiy Tyurin said on Telegram, adding that one body was found "during the extinguishing of a fire in one of the houses."Russian officials meanwhile said their forces had repelled "massive" Ukrainian attacks in the Volgograd and Rostov regions, while one person was wounded in the nearby region of Saratov.The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday its air defence alert systems "intercepted and destroyed" 149 Ukrainian drones overnight.Russian forces have been grinding across eastern Ukraine for months, trying to take control of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.Hopes of a truce have faded since US President Donald Trump held separate high-profile meetings with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodomyr Zelensky last month.On Friday, Estonia said three Russian air force planes violated its airspace, triggering fears in the EU and NATO of a dangerous new provocation from Moscow, which denied the allegation.The alleged Russian incursion came with tensions high on NATO's eastern border, after Warsaw last week complained that around 20 Russian drones overflew its territory — though the Kremlin denied targeting Poland.The UK, Germany and France have announced plans to reinforce joint air patrols with more jets based on NATO's eastern flank.