Ukraine war latest: Norwegian diplomats ‘in epicentre’ of Putin missile strike

Russian forces took control of the village of Krymske in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Russian news agencies cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying on Saturday.

The ministry said its forces had launched attacks aimed at Ukraine’s gas and other energy infrastructure and had shot down 108 Ukrainian drones in the last 24 hours, the agencies reported.

Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.

Officials said that the Russian forces also damaged buildings in the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian air defence was also repelling the attacks in Kyiv, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or casualties in the capital, they said.

“Russia’s daily attacks on Ukraine are a signal that the aggressor will not stop committing its crimes,” Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram.

“Last night and in the morning, Russia shelled Ukraine again: Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia… The terrorist targets civilian infrastructure: residential buildings, educational institutions, cars.”

Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least four civilians and damaging residential buildings and infrastructure across the country, Ukrainian officials said.

The Interior Ministry said that a Russian missile slammed into a residential building in the central city of Poltava, killing three people and injuring 10, including a child.

The ministry posted pictures on the Telegram messaging app showing the residential building with several top floors smashed and thick columns of smoke rising into the sky. Fire brigades and dozens of rescuers were going through the rubble.

One person was killed and four were wounded in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast as the result of a drone attack, the Kharkiv mayor said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Norwegian diplomats had been among those “who were in the epicentre of the strike” in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa.

Online pictures posted by regional governor Oleh Kiper and by Odesa mayor Hennady Trukhanov showed the lobby and other parts of the Hotel Bristol, a luxury landmark built at the end of the 19th century, reduced to rubble.

The Odesa Philharmonic concert hall, opposite the hotel, suffered damage with many of its windows smashed.

Online video showed fragments strewn on a street several hundred metres (yards) away near the opulent opera house from the same era.

Museums in the district also suffered damage.

President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration has already had “very serious” discussions with Russia about its war in Ukraine and that he and Russian president Vladimir Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the grinding conflict.

“We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant,” Mr Trump said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office.

“We want to end that war. That war would have not started if I was president.”

Mr Trump did not say who from his administration has been in contact with the Russians but insisted the two sides were “already talking”.

Asked if he has already spoken directly with Mr Putin, Mr Trump was coy: “I don’t want to say that.”

Mr Trump has said repeatedly he wouldn’t have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office, even though he was president as fighting grew in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces and separatists backed by Moscow, ahead of Mr Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.

Mr Trump since returning to office has criticized Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, saying he should have made a deal with Mr Putin to avoid the conflict.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack was “a deliberate strike” that underscored again the need to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences.

He said Norwegian diplomats had been among those “who were in the epicentre of the strike” in the historic district.

Mr Zelensky, speaking in his nightly video address, said the attack was staged “directly on the city, on ordinary civilian buildings”.

“Again and again, air defence is the top priority. We are working with all our partners to provide more protection for our country.”

Mr Zelensky said a meeting of Ukraine’s command had focused on improving weapons systems and speeding up deliveries.

“We need faster deliveries and greater numbers of systems and weapons which will enable us to save the lives of more of our soldiers, our people,” he said.

“More orders for drones. More investments for the development of robotic systems. And more orders for basic weapons.”