KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia and Ukraine bombarded each other with heavy missile strikes overnight as diplomatic efforts to end the war faltered, with the White House saying there were no imminent plans for Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to meet.
Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday that Russian strikes killed six people, including two children, in Kiev and the surrounding region, and forced power cuts across the country.
Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday it used Franco-British Storm Shadow air-launched missiles to attack a chemical plant in Russia’s southern Bryansk region.
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Putin and Trump spoke last week and agreed to hold a summit in Hungary that the Kremlin said could take place within a few weeks.
But after a phone call on Monday between the two countries’ top diplomats, the White House said the next day that Trump had no plans to meet with Putin “in the immediate future.” Trump says he doesn’t want to have a wasted meeting — something Moscow also says it wants to avoid.
Russian officials said, however, that preparations for a summit were continuing.
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“The dates have not yet been set, but thorough preparation is needed before then, and that takes time,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“It is clear that all of this is surrounded by a huge amount of gossip, rumors and so on. Much of it is completely false. There is no news yet.”
The standoff came after Russia reiterated to the United States its previous terms for reaching a peace deal, including that Ukraine cede control of the entire southeastern Donbas region, three sources told Reuters.
This amounted to a rejection of Trump’s statement last week that both sides should stop at the current front lines.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, according to state news agency RIA, that he could not confirm that Moscow had conveyed its position, as reported by Reuters.
“Preparations for the summit continue,” Ryabkov said. “I don’t see any major obstacles.”
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He added: “It’s a difficult process, I admit — but that’s exactly what diplomats are for.”
