Strikes kill 6 in Ukraine, 1 in Russia after Moscow rejects German calls to de-escalate

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia and Ukraine exchanged strikes overnight and on Sunday, killing at least six people in Ukraine and one in Russia, officials said, hours after Moscow rejected German calls to ease off its escalation toward NATO.

Russia’s top diplomat Saturday brushed off what’s believed to have been the first face-to-face meeting with his German counterpart since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The meeting was held during the United Nations General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders, as an intensifying aerial war between Russia and Ukraine showed no sign of slowing.

Ties between Russia and Germany have soured in recent weeks, following an attempted drone attack last month at Leipzig airport that Berlin blamed on the Kremlin.

With front-line positions largely unchanged since last year, Moscow has hammered Ukraine with cruise and ballistic missiles, powerful glide bombs and jet-powered drones in recent months. Meanwhile, Kyiv’s long-range drones have targeted Russian oil refineries and businesses.

Strikes kill 6 in Ukraine, 1 in Russia

In Kyiv, a man was found dead after a Russian drone hit a nonresidential building overnight, according to Ukraine’s emergency service.

Later on Sunday, Russian drone strikes killed one person and wounded at least five on the outskirts of the capital, according to local administration head Tymur Tkachenko. In Kyiv, a drone hit a nine-story apartment block, wounding one woman and perhaps other victims, according to municipal authorities.

In Russian-occupied Ukraine, a strike by Kyiv’s forces Sunday killed a woman in Enerhodar, the town housing Europe’s largest nuclear plant, according to its Kremlin-installed mayor. Maxim Pukhov said the Ukrainian drones also wounded two others.

Russian forces also attacked Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, which surrounds the country’s main Black Sea port, multiple times overnight into Sunday, killing one person and wounding two, according to the head of the local military administration, Oleh Kiper.

On Sunday afternoon, a woman and a 16-year-old girl were killed as Russian-guided bombs struck the city of Sumy in northern Ukraine, regional administration head Oleh Hryhorov reported. He said five other people were wounded.

In Russia’s Belgorod border region, a woman died in a hospital Sunday after being wounded in a Ukrainian strike, regional authorities said.

Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia struck twice at a data center in Kyiv on Sunday morning, wounding two children and an adult. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces struck multiple data centers in Kyiv on Sunday that it claimed were providing internet to Ukraine’s armed forces.

Russia and Ukraine repeatedly have blamed each other for damaging power lines supplying Enerhodar’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Moscow captured early in the war. The plant is not in service but needs power to keep cooling systems running and maintain safety.

Lavrov brushes off German diplomat

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was dismissive after the meeting in New York, which was held at German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul’s request. Lavrov said that Wadephul “simply reiterated his official position condemning Russia.”

“You can judge for yourself whether that counts as dialogue or not,” he said.

Wadephul expressed openness to a better relationship but said it required a genuine willingness from Russia’s leadership to end the war in Ukraine, according to a German delegation official.

An overwhelming majority of U.N. member nations repeatedly have condemned Moscow’s invasion. The Kremlin describes the war as a “special military operation” intended to ensure Russia’s security and the rights of Russian speakers.