Russia, Ukraine trade deadly overnight strikes as diplomacy stalls at UN

Russia and Ukraine exchanged overnight strikes into Sunday, killing at least six people in Ukraine and one in Russia, officials said. The attacks came hours after Moscow rejected German calls to step back from its escalation towards NATO.

The latest exchange of strikes unfolded as Russia's top diplomat brushed off what was believed to be his first face-to-face meeting with his German counterpart since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The meeting took place during the UN General Assembly's annual gathering of world leaders, even as the aerial war between Russia and Ukraine showed no sign of slowing.

In Kyiv, a man was found dead after a Russian drone hit a non-residential building overnight, according to Ukraine's emergency service. Later on Sunday, Russian drone strikes killed one person and wounded at least five on the outskirts of the capital, local administration head Tymur Tkachenko said. In Kyiv itself, a drone hit a nine-storey apartment block, wounding at least one woman, municipal authorities said.

In Russian-occupied Ukraine, a strike by Kyiv's forces on Sunday killed a civilian woman in Enerhodar, the town that houses Europe's largest nuclear plant, according to its Kremlin-installed mayor. Maxim Pukhov said the Ukrainian drones also wounded two others.

Russian forces also attacked Ukraine's southern Odesa region, which surrounds the country's main Black Sea port, multiple times overnight into Sunday, killing one person and wounding two, according to the head of the local military administration, Oleh Kiper. On Sunday afternoon, a woman and a 16-year-old girl were killed when Russian guided bombs struck the city of Sumy in northern Ukraine, regional administration head Oleh Hryhorov said. He added that five other people were wounded.

In Russia's Belgorod border region, a woman died in hospital on Sunday after being wounded in a Ukrainian strike, regional authorities said. Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia struck twice at a data centre in Kyiv on Sunday morning, wounding two children and an adult. Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces struck multiple data centres in Kyiv on Sunday, claiming they were providing internet to Ukraine's armed forces.

Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly blamed each other for damaging power lines supplying Enerhodar's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Moscow captured early in the war. The plant is not in service, but it needs power to keep cooling systems running and maintain safety.

Ties between Russia and Germany have soured in recent weeks after an attempted drone attack last month at Leipzig airport that Berlin blamed on the Kremlin. With front-line positions largely unchanged since last year, Moscow has stepped up attacks using cruise and ballistic missiles, glide bombs and drones, while Kyiv's long-range drones have targeted Russian oil refineries and businesses.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was dismissive after the meeting in New York, which was held at German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul's request. Lavrov said Wadephul "simply reiterated his official position condemning Russia". "You can judge for yourself whether that counts as dialogue or not," he said.

Wadephul expressed openness to a better relationship, but said it required a genuine willingness from Russia's leadership to end the war in Ukraine, according to a German delegation official. An overwhelming majority of UN member nations have repeatedly condemned Moscow's invasion, while the Kremlin has described the war as a "special military operation" meant to ensure Russia's security and the rights of Russian speakers.

The latest attacks and diplomatic exchanges underlined the continuing intensity of the war, with both sides reporting casualties from fresh strikes and no sign of a slowdown in the fighting.

With PTI Inputs