KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and wounded two more in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod, the region’s governor said Monday, as fighting continued ahead of a planned summit meeting in which Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to persuade his U.S. counterpart to back a peace deal locking in Moscow’s gains.
Nizhny Novgorod Gov. Gleb Nikitin said in an online statement that drones targeted two “industrial zones” that caused unspecified damage along with the three casualties.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed a total of 39 Ukrainian drones overnight and Monday morning over several Russian regions as well as over the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
The summit, which U.S. President Donald Trump will host in Alaska later this week, sees Putin unwavering on his maximalist demands to keep all the Ukrainian territory his forces now occupy but also to prevent Kyiv from joining NATO with the long-term aim to keep the country under Moscow’s sphere of influence.
Putin believes he enjoys the advantage on the ground as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold back Russian advances along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insists he will never consent to any Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory nor give up his country’s bid for NATO membership. European leaders have rallied behind Ukraine, saying peace in the war-torn nation can’t be resolved without Kyiv.
Meanwhile on the front lines, few Ukrainian soldiers believe there’s an end in sight to the war, other than a brief respite before Moscow resumes its attacks with even greater might.
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