Ukraine and Russia have accused one another of not being severe about peace talks as they traded blame for assaults on infrastructure.
The renewed accusations on Wednesday got here a day after the USA mentioned Ukraine and Russia had agreed to halt army strikes on vessels within the Black Sea following separate negotiations in Saudi Arabia.
The Ukrainian air drive mentioned 117 drones had been launched from Russia throughout an in a single day assault. At the very least 56 of the drones had been downed, 48 had been misplaced attributable to digital warfare and no harm was precipitated, it added.
Nonetheless, the mayor of Mykolaiv mentioned there have been energy outages because of the drones.
Within the metropolis of Kryvyi Rih, a Russian assault precipitated fires and broken buildings, however no casualties had been reported. Buildings had been additionally reportedly broken within the border area of Sumy, which has come underneath heavy assault in latest days.
The top of the army administration in Kryvyi Rih, Oleksandr Vilkul, described the drone assault as essentially the most important on town, including, “Apparently, that is how the occupiers ‘need peace’”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the in a single day barrage of assaults and mentioned it was a “clear sign to the entire world that Moscow shouldn’t be going to pursue actual peace”.
“Since March 11, there was a US proposal for a complete ceasefire, an entire halt to strikes. And actually each evening, by its assaults, Russia retains saying ‘no’ to our companions’ peace proposal,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
Zelenskyy will meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Wednesday earlier than a gathering of world leaders on Thursday that has been billed as a “coalition of the prepared”, which plans to set out safety ensures for Ukraine in any peace deal.
Final evening, there have been one other 117 proofs in our skies of how Russia continues to tug out this battle – 117 strike drones, most of them Shaheds. A major quantity had been shot down by our air defenders.
Dnipro, Sumy, Cherkasy, and different areas got here underneath Russian assault. There… pic.twitter.com/q4WTj87IHG
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 26, 2025
For its half, the Russian Ministry of Defence mentioned Ukraine carried out a drone assault on a fuel storage facility on the Crimean Peninsula and an influence set up within the Bryansk area, which sits on the border with Ukraine and its Sumy area.
“The Kyiv regime, whereas persevering with to break Russia’s civilian vitality infrastructure, is definitely doing the whole lot it might probably to disrupt the Russian-American agreements,” it wrote.
Ukraine denied that it had focused Russian vitality infrastructure within the two areas.
Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari mentioned additional negotiations shall be “troublesome” as each side proceed to commerce allegations.
“Accusations forwards and backwards illustrate how troublesome and fragile the scenario is between each side on this battle and the way troublesome the duty the American officers have forward of them,” Jabbari defined.
Within the meantime, NATO Secretary-Basic Mark Rutte warned in Warsaw on Wednesday that the Western defence alliance would reply with a “devastating” blow to any assault by Russia on Poland or one other ally.
On Tuesday, the US reached separate truce agreements with Ukraine and Russia in talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. US negotiators met individually with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, each of which agreed to stop their assaults at sea.
The 2 sides additionally agreed “to develop measures” for implementing an settlement to ban strikes towards vitality amenities, the White Home mentioned.
The US additionally agreed to push for lifting some Western sanctions on Russian meals, fertiliser and transport within the Black Sea.
The Kremlin mentioned “plenty of situations” have to be met earlier than the Black Sea deal might be applied, together with restoring hyperlinks between some Russian banks and the worldwide monetary system.
Nonetheless, a spokesperson for the European Union mentioned on Wednesday that one of many most important situations to carry or amend Russian sanctions could be “the top of the Russian unprovoked and unjustified aggression in Ukraine and unconditional withdrawal of all Russian army forces”.
Individually on Wednesday, a courtroom within the Russian metropolis of Rostov-on-Don convicted 23 Ukrainians on “terrorism” expenses in a trial that Kyiv denounced as a sham and a violation of worldwide regulation.
The defendants embody 12 captured members of Ukraine’s elite Azov Brigade, which led the defence of town of Mariupol within the early months of Russia’s battle.
