Zelensky meets today with Erdogan to consider a mechanism that could resolve the conflict with Russia through negotiation
At least 12 dead, including a child, and almost 40 wounded have been caused by missile attacks launched last night against Kharkov and the nearby town of Krasnograd. This is stated by the mayor of Kharkiv, the second largest in the country after kyiv, Igor Terejov, and the region’s chief administrative officer, Oleg Sinegúbov. As Terejov announced on Wednesday night, “there were at least four missile attacks (…) numerous fires have been declared.”
“The largest fire has broken out in the Kholodnogorsk district. A building is on fire and about to collapse, rescuers say. The first missile shots, according to Sinegúbov, hit a three-story residence in Saltovka set up for people who lost their homes due to the bombing and where there were mainly the elderly and children. The local official assured that “the destruction is terrible. 7 people died. 16 were injured, including an 11-year-old boy »and the search under the rubble for possible survivors or bodies continues.
“The Russians brutally and deliberately beat civilians. And now their so-called media outlets are spreading lies about alleged military installations. But they have not attacked a single military installation, but only civilians, including pensioners and children. This is authentic terrorism,” Sinegúbov stressed through his Telegram channel. The director of the regional department of Civil Protection, Iván Sókol, estimates that at the time of the bombing “there were about 30 people in the residence.”
Later, in the morning, Terejov reported on his Telegram account “another five missile attacks (…) there is still no precise information, but there were no less than five explosions.” In this new incursion, according to Sinegúbov, against the Slobodski district “there have been two deaths and 18 wounded, including two minors.” The bombs also fell on the town of Krasnograd, about 80 kilometers south of Kharkov, with a provisional death toll of two.
Kharkiv has so far managed to avoid falling into the hands of Russian troops, but it suffers from continuous shelling that has caused hundreds of casualties and is destroying its buildings and infrastructure. The Russian forces are trying to hinder the advance of the Ukrainian Army in its efforts to recover the 30 kilometers of territory that separate this metropolis from the border with Russia.
According to the adviser to the Ukrainian Presidency, Oleksiy Arestovich, admitted a few weeks ago, the Russian forces are also trying to move the Ukrainian artillery away from the Kharkov area so that they do not attack the railway through which they are supplied. However, the attacks last night and this morning, if the information from the Ukrainian authorities is true, have little to do with actions directed against military targets.
Kharkov, which had just over 1.4 million inhabitants before the war, is almost entirely Russian-speaking. At the end of February it was close to being occupied by Moscow troops, but its defenders managed to repel the offensive.
In this devilish context, a meeting of the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and with the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, will take place today in Lviv, in the extreme west of Ukraine. Sources close to the Turkish Presidency maintain that Erdogan will propose to Zelensky a mechanism to resolve the current conflict with Russia through negotiations, which have failed so far.
The Turkish agency Anadolu, citing the spokesman for the United Nations Secretary General, Stéphane Dujarric, reports that Zelenski, Erdogan and Guterres will also address Ukrainian grain exports, the serious situation around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and the explosion that At the end of July he killed the Ukrainian prisoners of war who were held there in a prison in Olenivka (Donetsk).
On July 22, in Istanbul, Russia and Ukraine separately signed an agreement with Turkey and the UN to unblock Black Sea ports. Under its terms, Russia will not attack ports while grain shipments are taking place while Ukraine agrees to guide cargo ships to avoid minefields. Since the signing of the agreement, some twenty ships have already set sail from Ukrainian ports with grain to different world destinations.
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