ONE person has been killed and four injured in a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s capital overnight.
Kyiv’s mayor said a nine-year-old girl was among the injured in the strikes which occurred early on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian military said it had shot down six of seven ballistic missiles and 71 drones launched by Russia, which sparked several fires throughout the city.
It comes after President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested Ukraine would be prepared to swap land with Russia in potential peace negotiations.
The strikes had caused damage in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi, Podilskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Obolonskyi districts, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Meanwhile, officials in the city of Kryvyi Rih also reported damage to residential buildings and infrastructure after it too was targeted in Russian missile strikes on Tuesday night, the Dnipropetrovsk regional governor said on Telegram.
Reacting to the attack on Wednesday, Zelensky said Russian president Vladimir Putin was “not preparing for peace”.
“He continues to kill Ukrainians and destroy cities.
“Right now, we need unity and support from all our partners in the fight for a just end to this war,” he wrote on Telegram.
In an interview with the Guardian newspaper published on Tuesday, the Ukrainian president said he would be prepared to swap land with Russia in a future peace negotiation.
He said parts of Russia’s Kursk region – which Ukraine has held since an offensive six months ago – could be returned in exchange for Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Moscow.
Ukraine has never said it wanted to permanently occupy the hundreds of square kilometres it seized in Russia’s Kursk region, but the goal has appeared to become clearer.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Zelensky’s suggestion was “impossible,” and Russia would never discuss the topic of exchanging territory.
Earlier, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s powerful Security Council, had also dismissed Zelensky’s suggestion as “nonsense”.
“Peace through strength, you say?” he said, mocking a phrase used by Zelensky in international addresses. Medvedev appeared to suggest the overnight attack was how Russia could achieve that goal.
For Ukraine, it was initially hoped the Kursk operation would relieve pressure on overstretched troops on other parts of the front line. However with continued Russian battlefield dominance, President Zelensky appears to be looking to use it as political leverage.
He has admitted Ukraine can’t enjoy any security guarantees without its biggest ally, the US. —BBC
