Russia attacked Ukraine on Sunday with one of his greatest drone bombings of the war, an apparent sample of force only one day before President Trump is expected to talk to President Vladimir V. Putin when Trump pushes Russia to accept a high fire agreement.
Drones bombardment, in which it is estimated that 273 explosive drones and lures were recorded in the heavens in Ukraine, killed a woman and wounded several other people.
His hours arrived after Trump said on Saturday that he would talk to Putin and President Volodyymyr Zensky of Ukraine, who agreed to a cessation of high unconditional and immediate fire, as well as the leaders of the NATO alliance. Mr. Putin has dragged his feet by accepting any temporary truce, adding previous conditions that he knows that Ukraine will not accept.
On Sunday, Mr. Zensky with Rome with Vice President JD Vance in his first meeting from a contentious White House meeting in February. Sunday’s sitting, which also included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Tok Place after Pope Leo XIV attended the opening mass.
The meeting seemed to be an attempt to demonstrate that any animosity between Mr. Vance and Mr. Zensky had dissipated. The White House said in a statement that the meeting focused on the current state of negotiations towards a high fire and a landing peace.
Trump also with Mr. Zensky privately in the Vatican before Pope Francis’s funeral on April 26 and later spoke warningly of the Ukrainian leader.
Ukrainian officials have argued that the relentless bombings of Russia, such as drone attacks on Sunday, are evidence that Mr. Putin does not want to find a path to peace.
The call between Trump and the Russian leader, that Kremlin confirmed on Saturday, would be his second publicly recognized conversation about Ukraine since Trump assumed the position in January.
Many people in Moscow celebrated the first call, which took place in February, as a victory, because Trump seemed to accept Kremlin’s opinion that Russia and the United States should establish the destiny of Ukraine directly between them. It was also learned that Trump had called Mr. Putin before Mr. Zensky.
Trump had boasted that he could resolve the war in Ukraine before a moment to assume the position and policy of the administration has largely directed to press Ukraine while offering incentives to Moscow.
Even before negotiations began, the NATO membership of the Trump administration for Ukraine outside the table, suggested the willingness to recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea de Russia and even briefly suspended American exchange and intelligence.
The administration has not yet provided Ukraine a new military assistance package, leaving more than $ 3 billion in equipment already approved by Congess on the shelf.
In a scathing reprimand of the Trump administration approach to war, a former American ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget A. Brink, has spoken for the first time about who resigned from his position last month. She said she He could not “in good faith” to carry out a policy that “pressed the victim, Ukraine, instead of the aggressor, Russia.”
“Peace at any price is not peace at all, it is appeasement,” Brink wrote in an article published Friday at Detroit Free Press.
The first direct conversations in about three years among Russian and Ukrainian officials on Friday did not bring both parties to Agreement, with Moscow making maximalist demands that Kyiv would never accept, even renouncing the land, Russia has not been able to capture, according to multiple officials who were in the conversations.
At the same time that diplomatic efforts were underway, the rhythm of Russian assaults on the Eastern Front in Ukraine has an increase in bones as the Kremlin prepares the scenario for large -scale offensive operations this summer official.
While Russia has only slowly advanced a cost, its forces have gained land to the south of Costiannynivka, a city in the Donetsk region which is a central logistics center for Ukainian forces. The Russians have it in the sights for years.
The flood of unmanned planes on Sunday was mainly addressed to kyiv, said Ukrainian officials, and Antiaircraft Fire illuminated the heavens on the capital when the air defense teams rushed to counteract the assault. In the course of about nine hours, said the Ukraine Air Force, 88 drones were intercepted, while another 128 disappeared from the radars.
A 28 -year -old woman in the capital’s region was killed and three more people were injured, including a 4 -year -old boy.
While the impact of the alluvion seems to have a limited leg, it was part of a pattern of growing air bombings, and the swarms become larger the more the war has been triggered. It is now common that the waves of more than 100 drones attacked towns and cities several times a week. On February 23, the Ukraine Air Force registered 263 drones in the heavens.
Ukrainian military intelligence warned at the beginning of the year that Russia’s goal was to be able to attack with swarms of more than 500 long -range attack drones in a regular base.
At the same time, Russia continues to improve weapons, equipping some with reaction engines and Starlink navigation systems. That allows them to fly higher and partying while transporting more mortal useful loads, including thermobaric ammunition.
The relentless drones assaults are destined, in part, to exhaust the aerial defenses of Ukraine so that the largest bombings that present cruise missiles and ballistic missiles have a greater probability of inflicting the maximum damage.
After meeting with the new Pope and US officials in Rome, Mr. Zensky reiterated his preparation for a Cease-fire.
“Pressure against Russia is needed until they are eager to stop war,” Zensky said on social networks, publishing a photo of himself and Mr. Vance smiling hotly while they sat with Mr. Rubio and other officials in Rome.
Pope Leo, who offered the Vatican as a place for peace conversations, spoke on Sunday about “Martyry Ukraine.”
“The Holy See is always ready to help unite the enemies, face to face, talk to each other,” said Leo.
