KYIV: Ukrainian rescuers searched for survivors from a Russian strike on a village that killed 29 people, as President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced deadly Russian attacks that came ahead of new US-mediated negotiations. Russia also struck a hospital in Kharkiv on Tuesday, wounding 73 people and damaging the facility's cardiology department as patients were being treated, Zelensky said.
The intense new strikes came ahead of new talks in Abu Dhabi next week between Russian, Ukrainian and US negotiators on ending Europe's worst war since World War II. Washington and the Kremlin confirmed the first talks since February in US President Donald Trump's push to end the Russian war, which has since 2022 killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
Zelensky, on a visit to Berlin, said Russia carried out a "massive" attack on his country and said it was "very telling" that it took place on the day of the key US elections. "The Russians believe that America will not notice this signal from them. But such terror must be noticed and stopped." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday he hoped that US-brokered talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Abu Dhabi, set for next week, would pave the way for his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We are counting on the fact that work in this format and our other diplomatic steps will open the way to a trilateral format at the level of leaders," Zelensky told reporters in Berlin.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that he had so far seen no sign that Russia was willing to engage seriously in talks aimed at ending the Ukraine war. "It is important that Russia finally and seriously engages in negotiations about a ceasefire and a subsequent peace agreement," Merz said alongside Zelensky, when asked about US-mediated Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi next week. "I do not see that happening so far," he commented.
US First Lady Melania Trump will host "representatives" of Russia and Ukraine in Washington, the White House said, without giving a date or saying who may attend. The meeting between parties from the two warring countries will take place at the White House and represents an "extraordinary moment in American history," the statement said.
On Thursday, the wife of US President Donald Trump will also make a statement on a recent four-day-long truce in southern Kherson region, the White House said. The truce, announced by Melania Trump on October 23 and which began on October 27, was the longest in the war and enabled civilians to leave the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky. In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, local leader Oleksandr Ganzha said a Russian attack on Tuesday killed two people and wounded 20.
Authorities said 29 people died and Zelensky warned there were "still people under the rubble" in the village of Komyshuvakha after the attack, where he said, "rescue operations continue as far as the security situation allows". Acting regional governor Mykhailo Semikin said on Tuesday that 48 people were missing. The attack followed the war's longest truce — in the southern region of Kherson — that ended on Sunday and raised hopes for a settlement. Zelensky said that the local truce could have shown "progress towards peace" but that "with these killings, Russia is sending an entirely opposite signal." — AFP
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