Kyiv: Russia and Ukraine traded damaging overnight airstrikes Thursday as talks were set to resume in Brussels to discuss post-war reconstruction of Ukraine and security guarantees after the conflict triggered by Moscow's full-scale invasion nearly five years ago ends.
The scale of the rebuilding task ahead was underscored by the latest Russian aerial barrage and ongoing efforts to hunt for people missing in piles of rubble left by a deadly airstrike in southern Ukraine on Monday.
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Ukraine hit back by firing hundreds of drones at Russian targets. The Russian defence ministry said that its forces shot down nearly 500 drones overnight.
Rescue teams continued to search for more than 30 people believed trapped in the wreckage of a former school and nearby shelter that was hit by Russian guided bombs on Monday.
The attack, which happened in Komyshuvakha near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, came as residents waited for humanitarian aid. It was one of the deadliest strikes there in the all-out war.
Ukraine's national police force said that 42 bodies have been recovered and efforts are continuing to identify some bodies using DNA samples from relatives.
Post-war reconstruction talks resume
Ukraine's lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said that talks will continue for a second day at NATO headquarters in Brussels, focused on post-war reconstruction, funding for 2027 and security guarantees backed by the Ukrainian government's Western allies.
Umerov said that the discussions with officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union and NATO were also attended by the World Bank and the US investment group BlackRock.
“We separately discussed the threats from Russia to Ukraine and all of Europe, as well as joint steps to counter them,” Umerov wrote in an online post.
NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said that representatives from the countries and organisations would meet again “to discuss the way forward on bringing about a just and sustainable end to the war in Ukraine.”
The Brussels meetings are taking place days before negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for talks aimed at trying to end the war. Late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he had held a 90-minute conversation with US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
“The negotiations must move forward at full throttle to bring this war to an end as quickly as possible,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X. “Ukraine is ready to take the necessary steps. Our proposals are clear, and we have given them to the American side.”
Kushner posted on X that talks are focused not only on “ending this terrible war, but on the broader security architecture needed to ensure that when the fighting stops, it never starts again.”
He paid tribute to Zelenskyy and his team's “constructive engagement and commitment to finding a path forward.”
