Russia pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones on Tuesday, killing at least 10 civilians as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that “every step” Vladimir Putin is taking points towards escalation.
Zelensky said that Russian forces had used ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea in a devastating overnight attack in Zaporizhzhia, where a company said seven workers at a steel plant were killed and 21 injured.
Three more people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed by Russian drones and artillery in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, authorities said, amid growing frustration over a lack of vital air defences.
Russian forces also struck parts of Kyiv, including the grounds of a children's hospital, leaving two craters and shattering windows, emergency services said. Children and medical staff were in shelters and nobody was hurt.
The Russian defense ministry said its forces overnight struck “military industrial facilities and transport and logistics centers” in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia with “ground-based precision weapons”.
Ukraine says that Russia is scaling up its production of ballistic missiles to exploit Kyiv's critical shortage of air defense interceptors, and claims Moscow is preparing to recruit more troops for a new push on the front line.
Meanwhile, Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine had turned over proposals to US negotiators for a plan to end the more than four-year-old war with Russia.
Zelensky told the nation in his nightly address on Tuesday: “We have conveyed our proposals to the American side.”
“And the United States can help strengthen our defence, first and foremost with air defence, and put pressure on Russia so that its plans are different -- to prepare for an end to the war rather than prolonging it,” he said.
Zelensky offered no details on the proposals. Ukraine has repeatedly called for a ceasefire after nearly four and a half years of fighting.
Russia says it wants a settlement, but any solution must involve Ukraine fully ceding four regions Moscow claims as well as resolving the conflict's “root causes”.
In a sign of Putin’s apparent determination to continue the war, Russia's Supreme Court on Monday barred the liberal Yabloko party, the only officially registered party that opposes the war, from competing in next month’s parliamentary election.
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had evidence that Russia would exploit its September “pseudo-election” - a reference to restrictions imposed on the polls - to proclaim a new mobilisation to boost the numbers of fighting personnel.
“They are preparing for mobilisation in the autumn, immediately after the imitation of parliamentary elections” as part of a plan to “create the appearance that Russians supposedly support the war,” Zelensky said.
“The Kremlin will not enter serious negotiations or make meaningful compromises on its demands as long as Putin believes that he has a viable military path to achieving his full objectives,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an analysis Monday.
“Ukraine's Patriot shortages offer Russia an opportunity to cause very serious damage to Ukraine over the coming winter and will therefore contribute to delaying meaningful negotiations and protracting the war,” it said.
In addition to providing ballistic missiles, North Korea is also preparing to deploy more of its troops to Russia, Zelensky said late on Monday.
"Every step Russia takes — increasing ballistic missile production, bringing in North Korean equipment, preparing for mobilization — all of this shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation," Zelensky said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a strategic partnership agreement in 2024, pledging mutual aid if either country faces aggression.
Kim has sent thousands of troops and huge supplies of weapons to support Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Some experts say the engagement with Moscow is helping improve North Korea's military capabilities, and Zelensky said the battlefield experience would help Pyongyang menace other countries in its region.
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