A Russian missile hits a hotel in Kryvyi Rih, killing five and injuring more than three dozen others. A European-led air protection plan could be expanded to shield part of Ukraine’s skies from Russia’s attacks, the Guardian says. Ukraine’s opposition leaders address reports of secret talks with members of Trump’s team, saying they oppose the demands for wartime elections.
Russian missile hits hotel in Kryvyi Rih, killing five, injuring more than three dozen others
A Russian missile struck a hotel in the city of Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday, killing four and injuring 32 others. The death toll from the attack rose to five on Thursday after a 60-year-old woman died from her injuries in hospital, head of the region’s military administration, Serhiy Lysak said.
The strike also damaged 14 apartment buildings, a post office, almost two dozen cars, a community house and 12 shops, Lysak added.
“Just before the attack, volunteers from a humanitarian organization — citizens of Ukraine, the United States, and the United Kingdom — had checked into the hotel. They survived because they managed to get down from their rooms in time,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on X, reacting to what happened.
Zelenskyi also thanked the medics, emergency responders and police. “There must be no pause in the pressure on Russia to stop this war and terror against life,” he said.
City authorities have declared a day of mourning on Friday.
European-led air protection plan could be expanded to shield part of Ukraine’s skies from Russia’s attacks, the Guardian says
A European air force of 120 fighter jets could be deployed to secure the skies from Russian attacks on Kyiv and western Ukraine without necessarily provoking a wider conflict with Moscow, according to a plan drawn up by military experts, the Guardian said on Thursday.
Sky Shield, its proponents argue, would be a European-led air protection zone operated separately from Nato to halt Russian cruise missile and drone attacks on cities and infrastructure, potentially operating as part of the “truce in the sky” proposed by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this week.
It would cover Ukraine’s three operating nuclear power plants and the cities of Odesa and Lviv, but not the frontline or the east of the country – and, according to a newly published paper, it could “achieve greater military, political, and socioeconomic impact than 10,000 European ground troops”.
[One of the initiative’s backers], Gabrielius Landsbergis, a former Lithuanian foreign minister, said in a statement: “The implementation of Sky Shield would be an important component of Europe’s stepping up, guaranteeing Ukraine’s security effectively and efficiently.”Though variants of the proposal have been discussed without making progress since Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a fresh version of the plan has gained renewed impetus this week after Zelenskyy’s acrimonious meeting with US president Donald Trump on Friday.
Those involved believe the pace of events in the last week means that ideas about protecting some of Ukraine’s airspace can now get a fresh hearing.
The concern in western political circles is that it would risk placing fighter jets from Nato member states directly in conflict with Russia, and could lead to a dangerous escalation of hostilities if a jet from either side was attacked or shot down.
However, backers of the scheme argue the “risk to Sky Shield pilots is low” because Moscow has not dared to fly its combat jets beyond the existing front lines since early 2022. The de facto separation from Russian aircraft would be “more than 200km” according to the scheme’s designers.
The European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) is a German-led project to build and develop a ground-based integrated European air defense system. This includes anti-ballistic missile capabilities to protect European air space. So far, 23 countries have joined the initiative since its inception in 2022.
In an interview with Le Figaro newspaper last week French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a four-week truce “in the air, at sea and on energy infrastructure.” It would not cover ground fighting along the front line in the east.
In a post to X on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi described what the initial steps on a path toward peace might look like: “We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky — ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure — and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same. Then we want to move very fast through all next stages and to work with the US to agree a strong final deal.”
Ukraine’s opposition leaders address reports of secret talks with members of Trump’s team, saying they oppose demands for wartime elections
Ukraine’s opposition leaders on Thursday have addressed reports of secret discussions with members of Donald Trump’s entourage, saying they opposed Trump’s demands for wartime elections.
On Thursday, Politico reported that four senior members of Trump’s team held secret talks with Yulia Tymoshenko and senior members of the party of Petro Poroshenko — and discussed whether the country could hold wartime elections.
“Our team has always been and remains categorically against holding elections during the war,” Petro Poroshenko, former Ukrainian president and leader of the “European Solidarity” party said in a post to Facebook. “Unlike the government, which diverts funds from the military to buy votes, and uses unconstitutional and extrajudicial sanctions to eliminate political opponents that amounts to a politically motivated persecution and a scenario of preparation for the elections,” he continued.
“We have said, and continue to say, that elections can only take place after a ceasefire and the signing of a peace agreement with security guarantees for Ukraine. At that point, martial law will obviously end. No later than 180 days after that, free and democratic elections should be held to ensure the will of the people and the trust of the free world,” Poroshenko said.
He added that his team works “publicly and transparently” with American partners, saying that “weapons, intelligence, sanctions against Russia and financial support” have been some of the issues on the agenda of such meetings.
Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s former prime minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna party, said she also opposes elections while the war continues. She said her team was “talking with all our allies who can help in securing a just peace as soon as possible,” adding that “as I said a number of times, until then any elections in Ukraine are not possible.”
