Ukraine launched drone strikes against Russia just one day before a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeking to end the war.
Both sides have played it tough ahead of the high-stakes summit, with Moscow piercing Ukraine’s front lines this week, and Russian authorities announcing on Thursday that drone attacks by Kyiv killed one person and injured at least 16 others.
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One strike hit an apartment building in Rostov-on-Don, injuring 13 people, according to regional Gov. Yury Slyusar. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region, said another strike injured three people and killed one in the village of Pristen.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said its defense systems intercepted 44 of Ukraine’s drones on Wednesday and early Thursday morning.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also continued drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, raising concerns from Hungary, which borders Ukraine.
“Hungary is Ukraine’s number one electricity supplier. Without us, the country’s energy security would be highly unstable,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on X on Wednesday.
“Given this, the Ukrainian attack on the Druzhba pipeline, which supplies Hungary with oil and is vital to our energy security, is outrageous,” he continued. “We firmly call on Ukraine to stop endangering Hungary’s energy supply and to stop attacks on energy supply routes leading to Hungary in a war we Hungarians have nothing to do with!”
Trump is meeting with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday as the United States seeks to bring the Ukraine-Russia war to an end.
The president has repeatedly expressed a desire to bring the death and destruction caused by the war to a swift resolution.
Still, Putin and Zelensky have appeared unable to resolve crucial differences regarding territorial boundaries, with Kyiv adamantly denouncing the Russian president’s hopes of acquiring the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson territories as part of a peace deal.
However, this weekend’s Trump-Putin summit could be a turning point in negotiations.
“We have a big meeting,” Trump said in the Oval Office ahead of his departure to the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. “It’s going to be very important for Russia and very important for us, and important to us since we’re trying to save a lot of lives.”
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The president suggested there is just a 25% chance the summit would be unsuccessful, indicating during a radio interview on Thursday that Zelensky could join him and Putin in a second meeting in Alaska if the first has a positive outcome.
“It’s like a chess game. This meeting sets up the second meeting. But there is a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting,” Trump said.