Overview
- President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz in London on Sunday to win support for one-on-one talks with Russia and stronger air-defence cooperation.
- President Vladimir Putin publicly refused Zelensky's meeting offer at the Saint‑Petersburg forum, saying he will not hold a face-to-face encounter unless a final end‑of‑war agreement is negotiated first.
- Both sides have stepped up drone and missile strikes, with regional Russian officials reporting more than 140 Ukrainian drones intercepted over Saint‑Petersburg and Ukraine reporting hundreds of Russian launches.
- Recent attacks have caused multiple civilian deaths across Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk and damaged a building at the centralized spent‑fuel storage in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Energoatom said.
- Diplomacy is active but stalled: Zelensky spoke with US envoys to relaunch talks, Western leaders call for joint mediation, and the ongoing strikes raise risks of wider regional spillover and strain on Ukraine's air‑defence supplies.