A barrage of Russian drone and missile attacks killed at least 10 civilians in Ukraine Saturday — including a 9-year-old girl — as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sowed new doubt whether Monday’s peace talks in Istanbul will even take place.
At least 32 people were injured in the attacks, as Russian troops launched more than 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight into Saturday, the country’s air force said.
The young girl was killed by a Russian strike on the frontline village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhzhia region — a 16-year-old boy was also injured, regional officials confirmed.
Moscow said Saturday it had gained control of a village in the Donetsk region and one in northern Sumy, leading to mandatory evacuations in 11 Ukrainian settlements near the Russian border – bringing the total number of Sumy settlements under evacuation orders to 213.
Zelensky also warned this week that Moscow was amassing more than 50,000 troops nearby in a sign of a possible offensive.
In the southern region of Odesa, the attacks hit the town of Izmail, Ukraine’s biggest port on the Danube River — infrastructure critical for the war-torn country’s imports.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian leader cast uncertainty Saturday whether the planned peace talks scheduled for Monday in Istanbul, Turkey will happen, saying Kyiv is now preparing for “new diplomatic steps” with Europe and the US.
“There is no clear information about what the Russians are going to Istanbul with. We don’t have it, Turkey doesn’t have it, the United States doesn’t have it, and other partners don’t either,” Zelensky said on Telegram.
“It doesn’t look very serious,” he said of the talks.
Zelensky also rebuked Russia for failing to turn over negotiating documents ahead of the Monday meeting – a nonstarter for Kyiv.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov unilaterally announced the talks Wednesday, saying Moscow would present a memorandum towards a cease-fire then.
But Zelensky countered that the Kremlin’s plans should be offered up ahead of time — and accused Moscow of “doing everything it can to ensure” the meeting is “fruitless.”
“For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,” he wrote on X Friday after hosting Turkey’s foreign minister in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city.
Moscow had previously promised to present the document after last week’s prisoner’s exchange.
Ukraine has sent its proposals to the US and Russia, which centers on “a full and unconditional ceasefire.”
President Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and on Wednesday gave the Russian leader two weeks to prove he’s serious about ending the war.
The Kremlin’s sweeping demands, according to sources, remain unchanged from even before Putin launched his brutal invasion in 2022 — barring Ukraine, and any country east of it, from joining NATO as well as lifting Western sanctions on Russia.
Delegations from the two countries last met in Istanbul on May 16 but the session yielded little other than an agreement for the war’s largest prisoner swap.