An airstrike on a residential building in Ukraine’s capital killed at least one person Monday, the country’s emergency service said, as Moscow maintained its devastating assault ahead of a fresh round of talks, IgbereTV reports
The strike, which injured at least a dozen people, came as Russian troops edged closer to the city and kept up their siege of the southern port city of Mariupol, where officials said nearly 2,200 people have been killed.
“As of 7:40 am (0540 GMT) the body of one person was found dead in a nine-storey apartment building” in the capital’s Obolon district, the emergency service said in a statement, revising an earlier toll.
Ukrainian and Russian representatives were set to meet via videoconference Monday, a Ukrainian presidential adviser and a Kremlin spokesman both said before the latest strike.
According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, the talks would begin at 0820 GMT.
“And our goal is that in this struggle, in this difficult negotiating work, Ukraine will get the necessary result… for peace and for security,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday, adding that both sides speak every day.
He said the aim was “to do everything to ensure a meeting of presidents. A meeting that I am sure people are waiting for.”
“We see significant progress,” Leonid Slutsky, a senior member of Russia’s negotiating team, told state-run television network RT Sunday.
Talks between Kyiv and Moscow have yet to yield a ceasefire and Russian forces have shown no sign of easing their onslaught
