By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan for talks in Kazakhstan on Thursday, a meeting at which the Turks are likely to raise ideas for peace in Ukraine, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
“Now many say that the Turks are ready to come up with other initiatives in the context of the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict,” Ushakov said.
“There are reports in the press that the Turkish side is putting forward specific considerations in this regard, I do not exclude that Erdogan will actively touch on this topic during the Astana contact. So a very interesting and, I hope, useful discussion awaits us.”
Ukraine has been faced with more missile strikes overnight, with critical infrastructure in the Kyiv region being hit with drone strikes and the southern city of Mykolaiv “massively shelled,” according to the city’s mayor.
In the wake of several days of Russian missile strikes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been calling for more international assistance in the form of air defense systems.
In his nightly address Wednesday, he said “the more audacious and cruel Russian terror becomes, the more obvious it is to the world that helping Ukraine to protect the sky is one of the most important humanitarian tasks for Europe.”
Power and water supplies are still damaged in a number of regions after Russia targeted critical infrastructure across the country in strikes on Monday and Tuesday and, to a lesser extent, yesterday.
Zelenskyy said that the power supply had been fully restored to most parts of the country while work was ongoing to repair the electricity supply in four regions.
