Ukraine threw a wave of drone attacks in Russia on Sunday, which caused a fire in a nuclear energy plant, since it celebrated Ukraine Independence Day in a context of hopes of fading for recent peace efforts.
After a wave of diplomacy and an impulse of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to negotiate a summit among his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, the peace prospects seemed to stop on Friday when Russia ruled out any immediate meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.
The three and a half -year war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, has a land of virtual stagnation, although Russia has managed to obtain recent progress in a grinding offensive, including the claim of two villages in the East Region of East Donetsk on Saturday.
Ukraine responded on Sunday by sending drones to new attacks against the Russian territory, including one that was shot down on the Kursk nuclear energy plant in western Russia, which detonated the impact and caused a fire, according to the installation.
The plant said the fire had extinguished, and added that there were no low or higher levels of radiation.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned about the dangers of fighting around nuclear plants after the large -scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine in February 2022.
The Russian authorities said that the Ukrainian drones had also been demolished over areas sometimes far from the front, including St. Petersburg in the northwest.
Ten drones were shot down on the port of Ust-Luga in the Gulf of Finland, causing a fire in a fuel terminal owned by the Russian Energy Group Novatek, regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko wrote on Telegram.
The smallest and stuck army in Ukraine has depended largely on drones to respond to the invasion of Russia, especially pointing to the oil infrastructure to reach a key source of Moscow’s income to finance the war.
Russia has seen the high fuel prices since the attacks began. Meanwhile, Ukraine said that Russia had attacked him during the night with a ballistic missile and 72 Shahed attack drones manufactured in Iranian, 48 of which the Air Force said it had been demolished.
A Russian unmanned aircraft strike killed a 47 -year -old woman in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, said the governor.
‘Ukraine is a fighter’
The last fight occurred when Ukraine marked the anniversary of winning independence in 1991 in the rupture of the Soviet Union. “This is how Ukraine attacks when their calls to peace are ignored,” Zelensky said in an independence day speech.
“Today, both the United States and Europe agree: Ukraine has not yet won completely, but it will certainly not lose. Ukraine has assured its independence. Ukraine is not a victim; he is a fighter.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney traveled to kyiv for commemorations, asking “a fair and lasting peace for Ukraine.”
Zelensky thanked other world leaders, including Trump, Chinese president, Xi Jinping, King Charles and the Pope for sending messages to mark the occasion.
Russia now controls around a fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula, which annexed in 2014.
The fight has forced millions of people to flee their homes and destroy cities and towns throughout the east and southern Ukraine.
Putin has repeatedly rejected the calls of Ukraine and the West due to a high unconditional and immediate fire.
On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that “no meeting” between Putin and Zelensky was planned since Trump’s mediation efforts seemed to stop, while Zelensky accused Russia of trying to prolong the offensive.
