"I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide which steps Ukraine should take. So far, the signals from them in the media are unconvincing," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The air raid was announced at around 2:30 p.m. local time, while the explosion sounded around 2:50 p.m. The number of victims killed rose to three, Sumy Oblast Governor Oleh Hryhorov reported at 8:42 p.m.
If confirmed, the decision would mark the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion that President Volodymyr Zelensky is absent, either physically or virtually, from a NATO summit.
The disclosure follows a warning from Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, who on May 6 said Moscow was carrying out an "unprecedented" interference campaign.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
Earlier reporting from the Washington Post cited a former Russian official who claimed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, would represent Moscow in the talks.
The Council of Europe on May 14 approved the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's top leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian lawmaker Maria Mezentseva reported.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow admitted she was in Russian detention the following year.
An exterior view of a damaged residential building after Russian aerial bombing of the city’s residential area with UMPB D-30 glide munition on April 7, 2024 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Ivan Samoilov/Gwara Media/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
Western officials do not believe that Russia has the capability to launch a new attack on Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv "without a major replenishment of Russian troops," Bloomberg reported on April 16.
Russia recently intensified attacks against Kharkiv, which had a population of 1.4 million in 2021, with the use of missiles, glide bombs, and drones, destroying energy infrastructure and killing civilians.
Russian forces failed to take Kharkiv in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, despite the fact the city lies less than 30 kilometers from the Russian border.
The Financial Times then reported on April 13 that Russia might plan to attack Kharkiv as part of a wider offensive.
Zelensky has said that "Kharkiv is protected" and Ukraine's military intelligence said earlier in April that news of a potential attack on Kharkiv "part of a Russian psychological operation," adding that there were no signs of Moscow preparing new attack formations to carry out a ground offensive.
"While Russia may be short of the manpower," Moscow is making a "coordinated effort to cut off supplies and create conditions that make the city uninhabitable, Bloomberg said, citing officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The damage is extensive enough, and the attacks so unrelenting, that authorities will struggle to restore capacity before the cold sets in next winter," Bloomberg said.
More than $10 billion is needed to rebuild everything that Russian forces have damaged or destroyed in Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said earlier in April.
Terekhov then told The Economist that Russia aims to make the city uninhabitable for civilians, but that Kharkiv was in a worse situation at the start of the full-scale war, when only 300,000 residents remained.
Andrii Kharuk
