Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine have killed at least two people, according to officials, as Ukraine ordered the evacuation of 11 more villages in its Sumy region bordering Russia.
Russian troops launched an estimated 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine on Friday and overnight, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday, adding that three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets without causing damage.
The attacks came amid uncertainty over whether Kyiv will take part in a new round of peace talks early next week in Istanbul.
In the Russian attacks on Saturday, a child was killed in a strike on the front-line village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhia region, and another was injured, Zaporizhia’s Governor Ivan Fedorov said.
“One house was destroyed. The shockwave from the blast also damaged several other houses, cars, and outbuildings,” Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
A man was also killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
Moscow did not comment on either attack.
Meanwhile, authorities in Ukraine’s Sumy region said they were evacuating 11 villages within a roughly 30-kilometre (19-mile) range from the Russian border.
“The decision was made in view of the constant threat to civilian life as a result of shelling of border communities,” the regional administration said on social media.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said some 50,000 Russian troops have amassed in the area with the intention of launching an offensive to carve out a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine’s top army chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, said on Saturday that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Torets and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area.
Syrskii added that Ukrainian forces are still holding territory in Russia’s Kursk region – a statement Moscow has repeatedly denied.
The evacuations and attacks came just two days before a possible meeting between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul, as Washington called on both countries to end the three-year war.
Russia has confirmed it will send a delegation, but Kyiv has not yet accepted the proposal, warning the talks would not yield results unless the Kremlin provided its peace terms in advance.
Zelenskyy said Saturday it was still not clear what Moscow was planning to achieve at the meeting and that so far, it did not “look very serious”.
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