Zelenskyy renews offer to meet with Putin as officials say Russian attacks kill a child in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday renewed his offer to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, but hopes of any progress were low as delegations from both governments prepared to hold a third round of direct talks.

Russian forces, meanwhile, pounded four Ukrainian cities in nighttime attacks that officials said killed a child.

Putin has spurned Zelenskyy’s previous offers of a face-to-face meeting to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. But the Ukrainian leader insists that lower-level delegations like the ones expected for talks in Istanbul on Wednesday don’t have the political heft to stop the fighting. Each side’s demands for ending Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, launched on Feb. 24, 2022, remain far apart.

“Ukraine never wanted this war, and it is Russia that must end the war that it itself started,” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that “a lot of work needs to be done before having a detailed discussion on a possibility of high-level meetings,” effectively scotching hopes of a summit any time soon. He didn’t provide a date for the Istanbul talks.

Ukrainian and Western officials have accused the Kremlin of stalling in talks in order for its bigger army to capture more Ukrainian land. Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy’s announcement late Monday that the negotiations would take place generated little hope of progress. That is despite the Trump administration’s efforts to push forward peace efforts, which have moved slowly because Putin is reluctant to budge from his demands.

Peskov said that “we have no reason to expect any magical breakthroughs, it’s hardly possible in the current situation.”

The previous two rounds were held in Istanbul, and Russian media reports said that the Turkish city likely would also host the meeting this time. The talks in May and June led to a series of exchanges of prisoners of war and the bodies of fallen soldiers, but produced no other agreements.

Russia, meanwhile, is driving hard to break through at eastern and northeastern points on the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line. It is also firing upwards of 700 drones a night at Ukrainian cities.

Zelenskyy said that at the next Istanbul talks, Ukraine wants to secure the release of more prisoners from Russian captivity and the return of children Ukraine says were abducted.

The Ukrainian delegation will be headed by former Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who is now the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. It will include representatives of Ukrainian intelligence, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the president’s office, Zelenskyy said.

Peskov said that “the issue of a Ukrainian settlement is so complex that even reaching agreements on prisoner exchanges or the return of bodies is already a success.”

Russian forces struck four Ukrainian cities in three regions in overnight attacks, killing a child and wounding at least 41 other people, officials said. From dusk on Monday evening, Russia struck the Ukrainian regions of Sumy in the northeast, Odesa in the south and eastern Kramatorsk.

In Kramatorsk, a glide bomb hit an apartment building, starting a fire, according to the head of the city’s military administration, Oleksandr Honcharenko. A boy born in 2015 was killed, local officials said, without giving his exact age. Five other people were reported wounded.

The Sumy region came under multiple waves of attacks, the regional military administration reported. A drone hit a gas station in the town of Putyvl, wounding four people, including a 5-year-old boy, it said. A second drone strike hit the same location less than two hours later, wounding seven other people.

After dark, two powerful Russian glide bombs were dropped on Sumy city, wounding 13 people, including a 6-year-old boy. According to regional authorities, five apartment buildings, two private homes and a shopping mall were damaged in the attack. The blasts shattered windows and destroyed balconies in residential buildings, acting Mayor Artem Kobzar said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said Tuesday that air defenses downed 35 Ukrainian long-range drones over several regions overnight, including three over the Moscow region.