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Zelenskyy, EU Leaders to Meet on Aid 10/24 06:15
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due in London on Friday for talks
with two dozen European leaders who have pledged military help to protect his
country from future Russian aggression if a ceasefire stops the more than
three-year war.
LONDON (AP) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due in London on
Friday for talks with two dozen European leaders who have pledged military help
to protect his country from future Russian aggression if a ceasefire stops the
more than three-year war.
The meeting hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is also due to
discuss ways of helping protect Ukraine's power grid from Russia's almost daily
drone and missiles attacks as winter approaches, enhancing Ukrainian air
defenses, and supplying Kyiv with longer-range missiles that can strike deep
inside Russia.
The talks aim to step up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin,
adding momentum to measures in recent days that have included a new round of
sanctions from the United States and European countries that take aim at
Russia's vital oil and gas export earnings.
Putin has so far resisted efforts to push him into negotiating a peace
settlement with Zelenskyy and has argued that the motives for Russia's all-out
invasion of its smaller neighbor are legitimate. Russia has also been adept at
finding loopholes in Western sanctions.
That unbudging stance has exasperated Western leaders. "Time and again we
offer Putin the chance to end his needless invasion, to stop the killing and
recall his troops, but he repeatedly rejects those proposals and any chance of
peace," Starmer said in written comments ahead of Friday's meeting.
Ukraine's Western allies need to resolve some big questions about the future
part they will play as Europe's biggest conflict since World War II heads
toward its fourth anniversary next February.
The uncertainties include how they can help fund war-devastated Ukraine,
what postwar security guarantees they might be able to provide it, and nail
down what Washington's commitments to future security arrangements might be.
Building a 'reassurance force'
Zelenskyy and Starmer are expected to be joined at the Foreign Office in
London by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Danish Prime Minister Mette
Frederiksen and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof. About 20 other leaders are to
join via video link in the meeting of the group dubbed the Coalition of the
Willing.
Details of the potential future "reassurance force" are scant, and the
London meeting seeks to further develop the idea -- even though any peace
agreement appears at the moment to be only a distant possibility.
The force is likely to consist of air and naval support rather than Western
troops deployed in Ukraine, according to officials. U.K. Defense Secretary John
Healey says it would be "a force to help secure the skies, secure the seas, a
force to help train Ukrainian forces to defend their nation."
Its headquarters is expected to rotate between Paris and London for 12-month
periods.
The war has shown no sign of subsiding, as a front-line war of attrition
kills thousands of soldiers on both sides while drone and missile barrages
cause damage in rear areas.
Russia says it has captured Ukrainian villages
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Friday that over the past week its
forces have captured 10 Ukrainian villages. The small conquests are part of
Russia's slow but steady slog to envelop the remaining Ukrainian strongholds in
the Donetsk region from both the north and the south and create footholds for
pressing further west into the Dnipropetrovsk region.
The Defense Ministry also said its forces downed 111 Ukrainian drones over
several regions overnight, with debris causing damage to homes and
infrastructure.
One drone hit an apartment building in Krasnogorsk on Moscow's northwestern
edge, injuring five people, including a child, according to Andrei Vorobyov,
the governor of the Moscow region.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that air defenses downed three drones
heading to Moscow, which forced flights to be suspended at two Moscow airports.
Three other Russian airports briefly suspended flights because of the drone
attacks.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities said Russian artillery struck a residential
block in the southeastern city of Kherson on Friday, killing two people and
injuring 22 others, including a 16-year-old.
Also, Russian planes dropped at least five powerful glide bombs on the
northeastern city of Kharkiv, injuring six people and damaging homes, according
to city mayor Ihor Terekhov.
Ukraine's rail company, Ukrzaliznytsia, announced train delays and route
changes in three regions caused by "massive shelling" that damaged
infrastructure, which Russian forces have targeted in recent months.
Ukraine's Air Force reported intercepting and jamming 72 out of 128 Russian
strike and decoy drones fired at Ukraine overnight.
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