Russia and Ukraine exchanged airstrikes overnight as talks were set to resume in Brussels on Thursday on Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction and security guarantees once the conflict ends.
Moscow launched its full-scale invasion nearly five years ago.
The latest Russian aerial barrage underscored the scale of the rebuilding task, as did the ongoing search for people missing beneath rubble after a deadly airstrike in southern Ukraine on Monday.
Ukraine launched hundreds of drones at Russian targets.
The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces shot down nearly 500 drones overnight, reports AP.
A Ukrainian attack killed five people and wounded 13 others Thursday in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region, Kremlin-installed officials said.
The strike hit a bus traveling between the regional capital, Luhansk, and a nearby town, said Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-backed leader.
Two teenagers were among the wounded, he said. Further details were not immediately available.
Meanwhile, rescue teams continued to search for more than 30 people believed trapped in the wreckage of a former school and a nearby shelter hit by Russian guided bombs on Monday.
The attack in Komyshuvakha, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, struck as residents waited for humanitarian aid.
It was one of the deadliest strikes in the region since the full-scale invasion.
Ukraine’s national police force said 42 bodies had been recovered.
Efforts to identify some of the victims using DNA samples from relatives were continuing.
Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said that talks will continue for a second day at NATO headquarters in Brussels focused on post-war reconstruction, funding for 2027 and security guarantees backed by the Ukrainian government’s Western allies.
Umerov said that the discussions with officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union and NATO were also being attended by the World Bank and the US investment group BlackRock.
“We separately discussed the threats from Russia to Ukraine and all of Europe, as well as joint steps to counter them,” Umerov wrote in an online post.
NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said that representatives from the countries and organizations would meet again “to discuss the way forward on bringing about a just and sustainable end to the war in Ukraine.”
The Brussels meetings are taking place days before negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for talks aimed at trying to end the war.
Late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he had held a 90-minute conversation with US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
“The negotiations must move forward at full throttle to bring this war to an end as quickly as possible,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
“Ukraine is ready to take the necessary steps. Our proposals are clear, and we have given them to the American side.”
Kushner posted on X that talks are focused not only on “ending this terrible war, but on the broader security architecture needed to ensure that when the fighting stops, it never starts again.”
He paid tribute to Zelenskyy and his team’s “constructive engagement and commitment to finding a path forward.”
In excerpts from an interview with German broadcaster ZDF, to be aired in full Friday, Zelenskyy expressed hope that the Democratic landslide in the US midterm elections could usher in a new era of support for Ukraine.
“We have support from two parties — support from both parties. I am also grateful to the Republicans,” Zelenskyy said.
He added that the Democrats “speak of renewing the ties between the US and Europe, which have been somewhat lost in recent years. And that is very important to us.”
