A road sign that reads “Dnipropetrovsk Oblast” on June 21, 2022. Photo for illustrative purposes. (Oleksii Samsonov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
Editor's note: This is a developing story.
Russian forces launched an attack against the city of Dnipro on May 15, killing at least two people and damaging infrastructure, Governor Serhii Lysak reported.
Several people have been injured in the attack; their number and condition are being determined, Lysak added.
Dnipro, Ukraine's fourth-largest city located in eastern-central Ukraine, has served as a key logistics and humanitarian hub during the full-scale war.
Russian forces have carried out a number of deadly attacks against the city and the surrounding region since 2022.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
Trump said he and Putin plan to discuss territorial exchanges in Ukraine, but Kyiv itself must make the decision. "But I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine," the U.S. president said.
The Kyiv Independent visited the front-line city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast to hear from its residents what they think about the prospects of land swaps between Ukraine and Russia ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska.
The corps claimed that Ukrainian units are operating inside the city, and civilians can move about, though travel within Pokrovsk remains heavily restricted. It is still possible to reach the city, the statement added.
Russian officials have not named the cause of the explosion, but preliminary accounts reported by Russian media point to possible safety violations in the workshop.
"This is a Russian tactic before any negotiations," Alina Alekseeva, the deputy head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, told the Kyiv Independent.
The Elysee Palace described the dialogue between the two leaders as "close and constant," but did not provide a specific date or location for the follow-up meeting.
Beka Museum urged immediate action, highlighting Russian President Vladimir Putin's role in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children and other atrocities committed under his rule.
The issue concerns refugees who have lived in the country since Aug. 16, 2023, under the Uniting for Ukraine program, devised by the Biden administration to allow Ukrainians to stay in the country on humanitarian parole.
EU ministers could reportedly agree in early September to open the first negotiating cluster with Moldova, a key legal step toward membership, ahead of the country's Sept. 28 parliamentary elections.
Abbey Fenbert
