Fighting Russian forces launched multiple attacks on Ukraine's Zaporizhia region, killing one person and injuring seven others over the past day, the region's military administration said on the Telegram messaging platform. The attacks involved 448 drones as well as 163 artillery strikes, causing damage to 136 homes, cars and other structures, the military administration said. Russian forces also continued shelling Ukraine's Donetsk region, forcing 173 people, including 135 children, to evacuate front-line areas over the past day, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.
despite continuing Russian attacks on the towns of Myrnohrad, Rodynske and Artemivka in Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk, as well as Huliaipole and Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region. Ukraine rejected this claim, as well as assertions from Moscow that the towns of Myrnohrad and Huliaipole had been completely captured by Russian forces. The Ukrainian military said that the situation in these regions is "difficult" but "defensive operations" are still ongoing.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the United States is pushing for Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the Donetsk region to establish a free economic zone in the Kyiv-held parts of eastern Ukraine that Moscow wants to control. Zelenskyy confirmed on Thursday that his country had presented the US with a 20-point set of counter-proposals for peace amid discussions on security guarantees with top US officials, making it clear that any territorial concessions would have to be put to a referendum in Ukraine.
Witkoff said he believed the land concessions were necessary all while advising Ushakov to congratulate Trump and frame discussions more optimistically. Now, me to you, I know what it's going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere, Witkoff told Ushakov during the five-minute conversation, according to Bloomberg's transcript. But I'm saying instead of talking like that, let's talk more hopefully because I think we're going to get to a deal here.
On Wednesday, Andrei Kartapolov, a senior Russian lawmaker, said: We know these missiles very well, how they fly, how to shoot them down, we worked on them in Syria, so there is nothing new. Only those who supply them and those who use them will have problems We will find ways to hurt those who cause us trouble.
Ukrainian forces launched drone and missile attacks on two cities in occupied parts of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region as US and European officials met in Washington to discuss more economic sanctions on Russia to force it to negotiate an end to the war. The attacks killed two people and injured 16, according to Denis Pushilin, the Russia-installed head of the Donetsk region.
