Selenskyj had initiated the anniversary of the independence of his country from the former Soviet Union in 1991 with a combative explanation. With a view to a series of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia on Sunday, he emphasized: “This is how Ukraine strikes when her calls are ignored.” As a result of the Ukrainian drone attacks, fires in the Kursk nuclear power plant had broken out in the border region to Ukraine and in an oil terminal near St. Petersburg.
A shot down, Ukrainian drone was “detonated” in the Kursk nuclear power plant, the operator of the facility said on Sunday. The resulting fire was deleted, there was no increased radioactivity. There were no victims either. The nuclear system, which is located near the 440,000-inhabitant city of Kursk in the West Russian region of the same name, was shut down.
During the intercept of ten Ukrainian drones above the Russian Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga near St. Petersburg, a fire broke out in an oil terminal, as the regional governor Alexander Drosdenko explained in the Telegram online service. The fire will be deleted.
Selenskyj said: “Ukraine is not a victim; she is a fighter.” On the occasion of the celebrations for independence, to which Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the US specialist for Ukraine, KEITH Kellogg, had traveled to Kiev: “The Ukrainians and their partners work together to push Russia to peace. And it is possible.” He honored Kellogg with the National Order of Merit.
Russia strictly rejects the stationing of European troops, which are discussed as part of Western security guarantees for Kiev. However, Carney said in Kiev at a joint press conference with Selenskyj that it was not Russia that decisions “how sovereignty, independence and freedom of Ukraine would be guaranteed in the future”. Carney also called for a ceasefire. Previously, NATO general secretary Mark Rutte had been in Kiev on Friday and had called for “robust security guarantees” of the western allies for Ukraine.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrow accused the western ally of Ukraine on Sunday to prevent peace talks. “You are only looking for an excuse to block negotiations,” said Lawrow in a TV interview. At the same time, he criticized Selenskyj in favor of “stubbornly insisting on conditions, making conditions and at all costs an immediate meeting” with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. The previous meetings between Putin and US President Donald Trump “brought very good results,” he said. If other states threatened with new sanctions, it is “the attempt to disturb this process”.
US Vice President Vance assured that Russia had made “significant concessions” with a view to a peace agreement since the summit with Putin on August 15 in Alaska. Vance said to the broadcaster NBC: “You are ready to be flexible for some of your central demands.” The Vice President did not provide any more detailed information on the alleged concessions.
Russia is currently checking around a fifth of the Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea Peninsula, which Moscow had already annexed in 2014. The war cost tens of thousands of people life, forced millions of people to flee and devastated cities and villages, especially in the east and south of Ukraine.
Russia attacked Ukraine again on Sunday. In the eastern Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk, a 47-year-old woman died, as the regional governor announced. Overall, the Russian army fired 72 drones and a rocket, as the Ukrainian Air Force announced. On Saturday, Russia reported on the front of two villages in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, the Ukraine on Sunday the reconquest from three villages.
The diplomatic efforts that had occurred at full speed at times seemed to have recently stalled. After the Alaska summit and a round with the Ukrainian President and top European politicians a little later in the White House, a direct conversation between Selenskyj and Putin has so far not been established. Kyiv and Moscow blend each other.
At the weekend, both sides performed a new prisoner exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 146 soldiers were handed over to the opposite side. Accordingly, eight residents of the Russian region of Kursk also returned home.
