Russia, Ukraine trade deadly strikes as Zelenskyy set to meet Trump
Russia bombarded at least four Ukrainian regions overnight with missiles and drones, killing five people, officials said on Tuesday, and Ukraine’s forces damaged another Russian oil refinery in their latest long-range strike.
The ongoing exchange of daily aerial attacks, while positions on the battlefield’s front line barely change, provided a backdrop to the visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the United States.
Zelenskyy was due to meet other world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, at the UN General Assembly in New York. The Ukrainian leader is hoping to recruit their help to end Russia’s more than 4.5-year-old full-scale invasion of his country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t due to attend the annual event. The war, which Western officials say has killed more than 500,000 Russian troops, has had global repercussions. The repeated attacks on Russian refineries, following Moscow’s strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, have caused international shortages of diesel and price spikes, according to Trump. However, the global crunch also came after the Iran war led to curtailed oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.
Zelenskyy also wants help to ensure the flow of Ukrainian grain and other farm products to world markets through the Black Sea. Russian attacks on cargo vessels have severely disrupted Kyiv’s exports, hurting its economy and threatening global supplies.
Russia and Ukraine have in recent years accounted for around 30 per cent of the world’s wheat exports and 12 per cent of corn exports, most of it shipped through the Black Sea. But last month, attacks slashed both countries’ agricultural exports by two-thirds, Thomas de Waal of the Brussels-based think tank Carnegie Europe said in a report Tuesday.
“The lack of that grain in world markets puts several African countries at risk of famine, while world cereal prices, already pushed up by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, could rise even higher,” it said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that his country would provide Ukraine with more radars to help protect its power grid.
He said on social media that he discussed with Trump the possibility of a truce between Moscow and Kyiv on strikes on energy infrastructure and a “moratorium” on Black Sea attacks. Zelenskyy began his New York visit by meeting with US senators, thanking them for what he called strong bipartisan support for Ukraine and for recently passing a tougher Russian sanctions bill that Trump has signed into law.
Peace and security will be closer once the bill is fully implemented, he said.
Zelenskyy said on social media that he briefed senators on his proposals for de-escalation measures that he intends to discuss with Trump later Tuesday. In Kyiv, Iryna Panina, 36, woke around 2 am Tuesday as a jet-powered Russian drone approached her home. It blew out a window and left her apartment covered in wreckage.
