Russia staged frightening drone strikes across Ukraine last night just hours after Kyiv signalled it was ready for a ceasefire following talks with the United States.
The massive missile and drone attacks cast doubt on Vladimir Putin’s willingness to accept Donald Trump’s demands for peace in the three year war.
Tuesday night the US President said he would talk directly to Putin, telling reporters: ‘It takes two to tango. I hope he will agree.’
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Kyiv’s agreement to a 30-day ceasefire, which came after significant pressure from Washington, meant that the ball was now in Moscow’s court.
‘Now it’ll be up to them to say yes or no. If they say no, then we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here,’ Rubio said, adding that the peace plan would be put to the Kremlin this week.
Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in Saudi Arabia but not directly involved in the negotiations, said his country was ready to accept the American plan and stop the fighting immediately.
‘We see it as a positive step and are ready to take it,’ the Ukrainian President said. ‘Now, it is up to the United States to convince Russia to do the same.’
But shortly after the announcement, with no official response from the Kremlin, Putin’s forces launched deadly strikes across the Ukrainian capital and vast swathes of the country.
The overnight bombardment saw a double missile strike hit Kryvyi Rih – the city where Volodmyr Zelensky was born – led to a woman, 47, in a trolleybus being killed. Smoke was seen rising from the site of the strike.
In Odesa, Vladimir Putin’s forces hit and damaged a Barbados-flagged 587ft-long dry cargo ship carrying grain bound for Africa, killing four, with several injured.
In a strike on Dnipro, the Kremlin dictator’s forces hit ten private houses, blasting out windows in a school and kindergarten, after which one man was hospitalised.
Russia unleashed Iranian-designed Shahed drones on Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, while footage showed a blazing fire at a warehouse in Sumy after a Russian strike.
A strike on the Greek-managed MJ Pinar cargo vessel in Odesa appeared designed to hit both Ukraine’s exports of grain and desperately-needed supplies via Algeria to Africa.
The vessel was loading 30,000 tons of wheat when the strike hit, igniting a fire. Among the dead sailors were three Syrians and one Ukrainian, with a fifth crew member and a port employee injured.
