Russia, not invited, blasts Saudi Arabia talks on ending war in Ukraine
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday castigated efforts by international officials meeting in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine, saying the talks don’t have “the slightest added value” because Moscow — unlike Kyiv — wasn’t invited.
Senior officials from about 40 countries gathered Sunday in Jeddah for a two-day meeting that aims to agree on key principles on how to end the conflict that has raged for more than 17 months.
But without Russia’s participation and without taking into account Moscow’s interests, the meeting was pointless, a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said. It repeated previous assurances that Russia is open to a diplomatic solution to end the war — though on its terms — and is ready to respond to serious proposals.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, ruled out Moscow’s previous demands, saying they were designed to give Russia time to dig in deeper in the parts of Ukraine it has occupied.
He said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Russian forces must fully withdraw from the occupied areas and that there would be no compromise by Kyiv on that.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Security Service announced Monday that it had detained an alleged Russian informant who gathered intelligence about Zelensky’s trip to the Mykolaiv region last month.
The huge Mother Ukraine statue in Kyiv, one of the nation’s most recognizable landmarks, has lost its Soviet hammer and sickle, replaced by a trident.
It claimed that the woman “was collecting data for an airstrike during Zelensky’s visit.”
The woman attempted to establish Zelensky’s route and the times of his visits in the region. She was detained when she tried to pass the information to the Russians, the statement said, without providing evidence.
Zelensky has been a prime target for the Kremlin since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, when he refused to leave Kyiv as Moscow’s forces approached.
He has been one of Ukraine’s unexpected trump cards in the war, playing a key role in rallying public morale, including a nightly video address, and becoming a recognizable face across the world as he presses allies and others to help Ukraine.
Russian officials say Ukrainian drones have hit a Russian tanker in the Black Sea near Crimea in the second sea attack in a day.
Also Monday, two Russian missile strikes hit the city center of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, killing five people and wounding at least 31, Ukrainian officials said.
One of the strikes, which targeted the Ukrainian portion of a region partially occupied by Russia, killed four civilians, and the other killed the deputy head of the regional branch of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in an online statement.
At least 31 people — including 19 police officers, five rescuers and one child — were wounded in the attack, the official said.
The strikes damaged a hotel, residential buildings and other civilian structures, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
Zelensky in an online statement accused Russia of trying to leave nothing but “broken and scorched stones” in eastern Ukraine. His remarks accompanied video of a damaged, five-story residential building with one floor partially destroyed.
Russian shelling also struck a nine-story residential building in the southern city of Kherson, killing one person and wounding four others, according to regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin. He said Kherson had endured a “tough night” as the Russians “covered the central part of the city with fire.”
A 57-year-old woman was killed and four people were wounded in the Russian shelling of a village in the northeastern Kharkiv province, Gov. Oleh Sinegubov said.
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