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Russian Defense Ministry Press Service
In this photograph taken from video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service connected Monday, May 12, 2025, Russian servicemen be a combat grooming for battle units successful an undisclosed determination successful Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
KYIV – Russia launched 10 Shahed and decoy drones astatine Ukraine successful nighttime attacks, the Ukrainian aerial unit said Tuesday, successful the smallest drone bombardment this twelvemonth arsenic the warring countries hole for imaginable peace talks successful Turkey.
The Kremlin hasn’t straight responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s situation for Russian person Vladimir Putin to conscionable him successful idiosyncratic astatine the negotiations successful Istanbul connected Thursday.
Zelenskyy volition not beryllium gathering with immoderate Russian officials successful Istanbul different than Putin, Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelenskyy, said Tuesday connected a YouTube amusement tally by salient Russian journalists successful exile.
Lower-level talks would magnitude to simply “dragging out” immoderate bid process, Podolyak said. European leaders person precocious accused Putin of dragging his feet successful bid efforts portion helium attempts to property his bigger army’s battlefield inaugural and seizure much Ukrainian land.
Russia efficaciously rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire demanded by Ukraine and Western European leaders from Monday, erstwhile it fired much than 100 drones astatine Ukraine. Putin alternatively offered nonstop bid talks with Ukraine successful Istanbul connected Thursday. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov insisted a Russian delegation would beryllium successful Istanbul without preconditions.
Both sides are preparing a spring-summer run connected the battlefield, wherever a warfare of attrition has killed tens of thousands of soldiers connected some sides on the astir 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) beforehand line.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington deliberation tank, said Monday that Russia is “quickly replenishing front-line units with caller recruits to support the battlefield initiative.”
Russia shunned the ceasefire connection tabled by the U.S. and European leaders but offered nonstop talks with Ukraine.
Putin has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government, particularly Zelenskyy himself, saying his word expired past year. Under Ukraine’s constitution, it is amerciable for the state to clasp nationalist elections portion it’s nether martial law, arsenic it present is.
In a further complication, a Ukrainian decree from 2022 rules retired negotiations with Putin.
But the U.S. has been applying stiff unit connected some sides since President Donald Trump came to powerfulness with a committedness to extremity the war.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Monday with the apical diplomats from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Poland, who were gathering successful London, to measure “the mode guardant for a ceasefire and way to bid successful Ukraine,” spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Those European countries had pledged further sanctions connected Russia if it didn’t comply with a afloat ceasefire that Ukraine had accepted from Monday, but they made nary announcement of further punitive measures.
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