{"id":254386,"date":"2025-12-27T17:35:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/254386\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T17:35:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:35:23","slug":"russian-drones-and-missiles-pound-ukraine-before-zelenskiy-trump-meeting-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/254386\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian drones and missiles pound Ukraine before Zelenskiy-Trump meeting \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia<\/a> attacked Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine with \u200dmissiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of what president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> said would be a key meeting with US president Donald Trump to work out a deal to end nearly four years of war.<\/p>\n

Before the attacks, Mr Zelenskiy said \u200dhis talks in Florida on Sunday would focus on the territory to be controlled by each side after a halt to the fighting that began in February 2022 with president Vladimir Putin\u2019s invasion of Russia\u2019s smaller neighbour, Europe\u2019s deadliest conflict since World War Two.<\/p>\n

Explosions sounded in Kyiv as Ukraine\u2019s air defence units went into action, and the military said on the Telegram messaging app that missiles were being deployed. The air force said Russian drones were \u200ctargeting the capital and regions in the northeast and south.<\/p>\n

The attack was continuing at 8am (6am Irish time) and an air raid alert remained in effect in the capital, Reuters eyewitnesses said. At least eight people were wounded, Kyiv authorities \u2060said.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s strikes prompted the temporary closure of Rzeszow and Lublin airports in southeastern Poland, to the west of Ukraine, after the Polish armed \u200cforces \u200bscrambled \u200dfighter jets, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency posted on X.<\/p>\n

Russia made no immediate comment on the attacks.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, Russia struck Ukraine\u2019s energy infrastructure and stepped up attacks on the southern region of Odesa, the site of Ukraine\u2019s main seaports, Ukrainian authorities said.<\/p>\n

Amid the continued fierce fighting, territory remains the main diplomatic stumbling block. A 20-point draft in the US-driven campaign to clinch a peace plan is 90 per cent complete, Mr Zelenskiy told journalists in \u2060Kyiv.<\/p>\n

\"UkrainianUkrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a 20-point draft in the US-driven campaign to clinch a peace plan is 90% complete. Photograph: Gleb Garanich\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Zelenskiy proposes demilitarised zone in eastern UkraineOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said a security guarantee agreement between Ukraine and the US was almost ready \u2013 a key element after guarantees in earlier post-Soviet years proved meaningless.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot can be decided before the New \u2060Year,\u201d Mr Zelenskiy posted on social media.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump said the United States was \u2060the driving force behind the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have anything until I approve it,\u201d Trump told Politico. \u201cSo we\u2019ll see what he\u2019s got.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before their meeting, Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskiy will have a call on Saturday, joined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other European leaders, a commission spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Mr Zelenskiy told Axios \u200dthe US had offered a 15-year deal on security guarantees, subject to renewal, but Kyiv wanted a longer agreement with legally binding provisions to guard against further Russian aggression.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump said he believed Sunday\u2019s meeting would go well. He also said he expected to speak with Mr Putin \u201csoon, as much as I want.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to territory, a critical point is control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, Europe\u2019s largest, seized by Russia in the opening weeks of the war.<\/p>\n

Moscow demands that Ukraine withdraw from the areas of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian troops have failed to occupy in their drive to secure all of the Donbas, which also includes the Luhansk region.<\/p>\n

Kyiv wants the fighting halted at the current lines.<\/p>\n

Under a US compromise, a free economic zone would be set up if \u200cUkraine leaves parts of the Donetsk \u200cregion, though details have yet to be worked out.<\/p>\n

Axios quoted Mr Zelenskiy as saying that if he is not able to push the US to back Ukraine\u2019s \u201cstrong\u201d position on the land issue, he was willing to put the 20-point plan to a referendum \u2013 as long as Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire to \u200callow Ukraine to prepare for and hold the vote.<\/p>\n

He said he wanted more pressure applied to Russia.<\/p>\n

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Kyiv\u2019s version of the 20-point plan differed from what Russia had been discussing with the \u2060US, according to Interfax-Russia news agency.<\/p>\n

But he expressed optimism that matters had reached a \u201cturning point\u201d in the search for a settlement.<\/p>\n

Mr Putin\u2019s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, spoke with members of the Trump administration after Moscow received US proposals about a possible peace deal, the Kremlin said on Friday. It did not disclose how Moscow had viewed the documents. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Zelenskiy \u2018doesn\u2019t have anything until I approve it\u2019, says Trump ahead of meeting on SundayOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia attacked Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine with \u200dmissiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of what president…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,550,7,8,2264,2267,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-254386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-ukraine-crisis","22":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115792741946906781","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}