Russian Drone Strikes Kill Seven at Kharkiv as Zelensky Heads to White House for Trump, European Leader Talks

Russian drone strikes on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed at least seven people, including two children, in an attack that came on the eve of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with President Trump and top European leaders at the White House.Russia launched 140 drones and four missiles into Ukraine early Monday morning, with impacts reported across 25 locations in the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and Kyiv regions, according to ABC News.Among the dead were those in an apartment building attacked by five Shahed strike drones, according to the head of Kharkiv National Police’s investigations unit, Serhiy Bolvinov.“An entire family died in an apartment on the fifth floor,” Mr. Bolvinov said in a post on Facebook. “Unfortunately, we have become accustomed to war, accustomed to treacherous enemy attacks at night and in the morning,” he added. “But after attacks like today’s, words fail us. They deliberately destroy ordinary residential high-rise buildings — one shahid flew into an apartment on the second floor, and four into the top floor, where people simply had no chance of survival.”“This was an absolutely demonstrative and cynical Russian strike,” Mr. Zelensky wrote in a post to Telegram. “They know that today in Washington there is a meeting to end the war.”The attacks come as Mr. Zelensky arrives at Washington to meet Mr. Trump and European leaders at the White House, where Mr. Trump has said he hopes to secure an agreement to a deal that would end the war with Russia.President Vladimir Putin “will kill demonstratively to keep pressuring Ukraine, Europe and to humiliate diplomatic efforts,” Mr. Zelensky added. “That is why we are so eagerly awaiting help to stop the killings. That is why reliable security guarantees are needed. That is why Russia must not receive any reward for this war. The war must be ended. And it is Moscow that must hear the word ‘stop’.”Mr. Zelensky will arrive at Washington on Monday morning with European leaders who are expected to push back against concessions they fear Mr. Trump may have offered to Mr. Putin in private talks during a summit between the two world leaders in Alaska on Friday.Among those attending Monday’s meeting at the White House are the United Kingdom’s prime minister, Keir Starmer; Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni; Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany; the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb; France’s president, Emmanuel Macron; NATO’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte; and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. The group and other members of the so-called Coalition of the Willing met with Mr. Zelensky at Brussels on Sunday, ahead of the White House meeting.According to Reuters, Russia’s president is proposing a territorial exchange: returning small portions of occupied Ukrainian land in return for Ukraine ceding large areas that Russia has sought since the war began in February 2022.The proposal would give Russia control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions — key parts of Ukraine’s industrial heartland that Russia has invaded but not fully captured. Under the Kremlin plan, Russia would also retain current positions in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Russian Drone Strikes Kill Seven at Kharkiv as Zelensky Heads to White House for Trump, European Leader Talks

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