Russia and Ukraine exchanged fire early Tuesday with heavy airstrikes on Kiev and attacks on areas of southern Russia, just hours after President Donald Trump struck a positive tone about the prospect of a ceasefire deal.
Ukraine’s air defenses worked to protect the capital from a combination of rocket and drone attacks, and loud explosions were heard, with authorities ordering residents to stay in shelters. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a residential apartment building was severely damaged in the attacks and firefighters were trying to put out fires in several shops.
Klitschko said some power and water outages were imposed in parts of the city as emergency responders responded to the attack, according to a statement on Telegram.
Meanwhile, the Krasnodar region on Russia’s Black Sea coast suffered suspected drone attacks overnight that injured six people and damaged at least 20 residential buildings in five municipalities, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said. According to him, the key port of Novorossiysk was among the most affected.
In the neighboring Rostov region, one person was killed and three others injured in an airstrike on Taganrog, which also damaged residential buildings, two industrial enterprises and a kindergarten, Mayor Svetlana Kambulova said.
In a social media post, Trump indicated that there had been “great progress” on the Ukraine deal. His comments suggested that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukrainian officials who met in Geneva on Sunday had made progress in quelling vehement opposition from Kiev and its European allies to the 28-point peace proposal the White House team presented last week.
In the days since White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev drafted the plan, Ukrainian and European officials have been scrambling to craft a counteroffer that would give Russia far less favorable terms. The result, according to people familiar with the issue, is a complicated, 19-point plan.
Russian officials called the revised plan non-starter.
In Ukraine, the Energy Ministry said Russian forces were also conducting a “massive combined attack” on the country’s energy infrastructure. “Energy workers will begin to evaluate the consequences and carry out restoration work as soon as the security situation allows,” the ministry said in a Telegram.
The bombing followed President Volodymyr Zelensky’s announcement in his regular evening address to the nation that progress had been made in talks on peace proposals Kyiv is conducting with its American and European partners.
“Now the list of necessary steps to end the war may be feasible,” Zelenskiy said. “Many of the right elements have been taken into account in this framework.” But much remains to be done, Zelenskyy said, adding that the process should be conducted “with dignity.”
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
