US officials meet with Russia as airstrikes continue

Separately, Romania scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday morning to monitor what it said were two intrusions into its airspace by drones in the east and south-east near the border with Ukraine, according to the Defence Ministry.

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Before the bombardment overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used his regular evening address to the nation to say that progress had been made in negotiations over peace proposals, which Kyiv is conducting with its US and European partners.

“Now the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable,” Zelensky said. “Many right elements have been taken into account in this framework.” However, much remains to be done, he said, adding that the process should be conducted “with dignity”.

In the days since White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart, Kirill Dmitriev, hammered out the 28-point Trump peace plan floated last week, Ukrainian and European officials have hurried to draft a counter-offer with far less favourable terms for Russia.

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The result is a winnowed-down, 19-point plan, according to people familiar with the matter, but Russian officials have called the revised plan a non-starter.

Following the overnight strikes, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called for continued pressure on Russia as well as unity among transatlantic allies to end the war. The latest attack was a “terrorist response to the United States’ and President Trump’s peace proposals”, he said on the X platform.

Bloomberg, AP

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