Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine, injuring four people and damaging residential and commercial buildings in Kyiv and other parts of the country, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.
Overnight attacks
According to the Ukrainian air force, 56 of 88 Russian drones were shot down and 24 disoriented by means of electronic warfare.
Drones have played a big part in the conflict in Ukraine, with both sides employing them to carry out sometimes very long-range attacks on each other.
US envoy denies Ukraine partitioning claims
Meanwhile, Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy to Ukraine, found himself in the middle of a controversy over appearing to suggest that Ukraine could be divided like Berlin after World War II.
Kellogg posted on X, formerly Twitter, to clarify remarks he made in an interview with The Times newspaper published on Saturday.
In the interview, he was quoted as saying: “You could almost make it look like what happened with Berlin after World War II, when you had a Russian zone, a French zone, and a British zone, a US zone.”
His remarks were interpreted by some media outlets as suggestions that Ukraine could be partitioned in a manner similar to postwar Berlin, but Kellogg denied this.
“I was speaking of a post-ceasefire resiliency force in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty. In discussions of partitioning, I was referencing areas or zones of responsibility for an allied force (without US troops). I was NOT referring to a partitioning of Ukraine,” he said.
According to the Times, Kellogg said a demilitarized zone could be established along the existing lines of control in eastern Ukraine as a buffer between Ukrainian and allied troops, and Russian forces.
“You look at a map and you create, for lack of a better term, a demilitarized zone (DMZ),” he was quoted as saying.
Kellogg suggested that the presence of international troops in Ukraine would “not be provocative at all” to Russia, as they would be “west of the (Dnipro), which is a major obstacle.”
He did admit that Russian President Vladimir Putin “might not accept” the proposal.
Fears of concessions to Moscow
Russian troops currently occupy all or most of four regions in eastern Ukraine that it claims as its own, which together make up some 20% of Ukrainian territory.
As the US continues to push for peace talks and a deal with Moscow, US envoy Steve Witkoff held a third set of talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Moscow is facing accusations from the US and others of dragging its feet on a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that Kyiv has agreed to.
Edited by: Roshni Majumdar
