Kyiv, Ukraine, Nov 25 (AFP/APP/DNA:Ukraine and Russia counted casualties Tuesday after trading deadly overnight strikes, as negotiators scrambled to revise a framework to end the nearly four-year conflict ahead of a US-imposed deadline.
US President Donald Trump has given Kyiv until November 27 — the American holiday of Thanksgiving — to respond to his proposal to end the fighting, a timeline and blueprint that European leaders have baulked at.
Kyiv and its allies nonetheless spent the weekend hammering away at Washington’s 28-point plan, which initially hewed close to Russia’s hardline demands, requiring the invaded country to cede territory, cut its military and pledge never to join NATO.
An updated version, aiming to “uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty”, was thrashed out over the weekend at emergency talks in Geneva.
Countries supporting Kyiv — part of the “coalition of the willing” — are due to hold a video call Tuesday to discuss the state of the plan.
On the battlefield, the adversaries ramped up pressure with a flurry of overnight attacks.
Before dawn Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted and destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones — one of the highest figures reported.
In Russia’s Rostov region, acting governor Yuri Sliusar said at least three people were killed in the strikes.
“Tonight’s enemy attack brought great grief,” Sliusar said.
In the Krasnodar frontier region, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev called the overnight bombardment “one of the Kyiv regime’s most sustained and massive attacks”.
Across the border in the Ukrainian capital, AFP journalists heard powerful explosions and saw people running for shelters as air raid sirens blared.
Authorities in Kyiv said at least two people died and seven were wounded in the capital, after a barrage of missiles and drones targeted the country’s beleaguered energy sector.
“We must be cognisant that Russia will not ease its pressure on Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said as his air force issued a nationwide missile warning.
Zelensky has described his country as being in a “critical moment”, after last week saying Ukraine risked losing either its “dignity” or Washington as an ally.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who welcomed the original US plan to end the fighting, has threatened to seize more Ukrainian territory if Kyiv walks away from the negotiations.
Russia’s military already occupies around a fifth of Ukraine — much of it ravaged by years of fighting.
Kyiv and its European allies say the war, the largest and deadliest on European soil since World War II, is an unprovoked and illegal land grab that has resulted in a tidal wave of violence and destruction.
Tens of thousands of civilians and military personnel have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
