Ukraine strikes a drone-producing plant in the Moscow region. Zelenskyi talks to journalists about a possible Putin meeting, Moscow’s “memorandum” and Russia’s preparations for an advance. Putin demands NATO not to expand, sanctions lifted to end his war on Ukraine, Reuters says.
Ukraine strikes drone-producing plant in Moscow region
Ukrainian drones attacked the Elma Technology Park in Russia’s Zelenograd, less than 50 kilometers outside Moscow, overnight on Wednesday, Russian Telegram channels said, citing local residents. The attack also struck Russia’s Kronstadt plant, which produces drones in the town of Dubna outside Moscow.
A fire broke out at the Elma Technology Park following the drone strike. Zelenograd is thought to be one of Russia’s key microelectronics research and manufacturing centers.
The web site of another facility targeted in the attack, the Kronstadt plant that produces drones, says that the plant “has been developing for more than 15 years its own engineering and information technologies in the drone industry that are in demand both on the Russian and international markets.”
The Ukrainian drone attack has paralyzed aviation in and around the Russian capital with at least 62 flights cancelled in Moscow’s airports on Wednesday, Radio Liberty said, citing the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviation).
As of 10 a.m. local time, 52 flights in four Moscow airports were delayed for more than two hours. At least 55 planes were diverted to other airfields at night. Eyewitness accounts described passenger crowds at the entrance to the Vnukovo airport as well as at check-in counters and ticket offices.
Russia’s defense ministry said its air defenses had downed 296 Ukrainian drones over 13 regions overnight into Wednesday.
Zelenskyi on possible Putin meeting, Moscow’s “memorandum” and Russia’s preparations for advance
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi is ready to any configuration of talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, he told reporters on Tuesday. He said he sees the U.S. increasingly convinced that Putin is unwilling to end his war on Ukraine.
Here are the highlights from that conversation collected by Ukrainian news outlet “The New Voice of Ukraine”.
Ukraine will respond to a promised “memorandum” from Russia on its demands for a peace deal once it receives the proposals. “Russia has pledged to convey something it called a memorandum. They will convey what they see as the next steps and whether Russia is capable of supporting a ceasefire and a meeting at the level of heads of state. We will read their proposals and definitely respond,” Zelenskyi said.
Zelenskyi said he is ready to any configuration of talks. “We are ready to meet at the level of leaders. Both the American side knows this, and the Russian side knows this. We are ready for a ‘Trump-Putin-me’ meeting, and we are ready for Trump-Putin and Trump-Zelenskyi meetings followed by a meeting of three of us,” Zelenskyi said. He added that he is ready to discuss a ceasefire at the level of leaders without prior technical consultations.
Turkey, the Vatican and Switzerland are the most “realistic” locations for the next round of Ukraine-Russia peace talks, Zelenskyi said. Meeting in Belarus as Moscow suggests is not possible, he added. “For us Belarus is a country from where the missiles were launched at us. It is an ally of a country that has attacked us. [Russian] troops also invaded [Ukraine] from Belarus,” Zelenskyi said.
The U.S. does not stand by Russia’s demand that Ukraine cede the territory that Russia does not occupy. “In my view the U.S. at the highest level will not support [Russia’s demand] that Ukraine withdraw from the territory it currently controls,” Zelenskyi told reporters.
Russia is reluctant to release foreign nationals in prisoner swaps with Ukraine. “[The Russians] want to have a lever over the countries where these boys came from. And they use it to get what they need. Sometimes they need to make pressure, other times they want to exchange them for their special agents who serve prison terms in other countries,” Zelenskyi said.
Russia is preparing to produce 300-350 drones per day, which will be stepped up to 500, Zelenskyi said. “They were tasked to produce 500 [drones] a day, I don’t think they’ve achieved that. That’s why I don’t see 1,000 as a realistic number [of drones used daily against Ukraine], but we must understand that [Russia] can collect them for several days and later launch in one day. We cannot fully deny it.”
Ukraine would not want the U.S. to abandon peace efforts. He highlighted U.S. weapons supply and intelligence sharing as “important things.”
Zelenskyi said that at a meeting in Vatican City in April he and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed sanctions on Russia’s energy and banking sectors. “We discussed two key aspects of the sanctions policy — energy and banking sectors. Will the U.S. impose sanctions on these two sectors? I would strongly encourage that.”
The Russian economy will feel the impact of sanctions by the summer of 2026, Zelenskyi said. “We all very much hope that by June 2026 the war will end. Yet we understand that Russia will feel the hardship from the sanctions that are already in place. We think that starting from summer 2026, their economy will feel the impact strongly.”
EU’s 18th round of sanctions against Russia may contain “strong measures” unless they do not get blocked by any of the leaders, Zelenskyi said.
Ukraine cannot support the U.S. and EU on doing business with Russia while the war rages. “No adequate person, regardless of nationality, would accept that,” he said.
Zelenskyi said he and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will discuss the supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine during a meeting in Berlin on Wednesday.
The U.S. is possibly disappointed with Putin, Zelenskyi said. “The White House has now understood that Putin does not want to end [his full-scale invasion of Ukraine] the way the White House wants it to,” he said, adding that the U.S. did not impose strong sanctions on Russia as it expected Moscow to make concessions. “I guess their confidence that Putin really wants to end the war is fading,” Zelenskyi said.
Zelenskyi said he will attend the G7 summit, while his participation in a NATO summit is still a question. “I was invited to a G7 summit by [Canada’s] Prime Minister Carney and I will be there. As for the EU summit, I will attend it in some format. We do not have any challenges there. As for the NATO [summit], Rutte told me that they would very much want Ukraine to be there. For Ukraine it is very important to understand how it can be presented there. There are a lot of different signals on NATO,” he said.
The pace of military recruitment and weapons supply to Ukraine remain unchanged.
Ukraine will find a response to Russian missiles if it has enough funds. “We can surprise Russia if we have enough money. That’s true. We will find a response to all their missiles if we have financing for a certain period of time. Can it bring us closer to peace? Yes, it can,” Zelenskyi said.
Ukraine needs USD 30 billion to launch military production at full capacity. “We lack this amount of money per year to operate at full capacity. We are not operating at full capacity. I mean a missile program and everything else we can produce domestically,” Zelenskyi said. At the same time Ukraine has acquired two-thirds of the money to buy artillery from the outside, he added.
Zelenskyi described the progress of Ukraine’s ballistic missile program. “We have taken several steps forward in the missile program. It’s a large and complex plan to produce Ukrainian ballistic missiles. It begins to operate, but we need money. This is additional money that is not part of the bilateral financing we have with our partners. We are working to increase the financing of this particular direction,” he said.
Zelenskyi also said Ukraine is coming close to licensing of additional air defense systems, but declined to provide details.
Ukraine is rationing missiles for Patriot air defense systems, he added. “We use them [to intercept] the most complicated missiles, including ballistic and cruise missiles. We do have the missiles. There are partners that are helping us [to get them].”
Russia is recruiting 50,000 soldiers a month. It has mobilized 40,000 in May. “[Russia] pays them more than USD 10,000,” Zelenskyi said.
In a recent attack against Russia, Ukraine struck targets, using 400 drones simultaneously, and destroyed 40 pieces of Russian equipment. “[The move] was made by the military on the battlefield only. We tested such operation. We have shown them a lot more than just this operation,” he said.
Russian forces are trying to break through into the region of Dnipro, but are failing. They have also massed the most combat-capable troops in Russia’s Kursk region along the border with Ukraine’s Sumy region in an attempt to create a 10-kilometer “buffer zone”.
Russia has massed more than 50,000 troops in the Sumy direction, Zelenskyi said. It is also conducting sabotage operations, but Ukrainian troops are responding to them.
Ukraine continues operations in Kursk. Ukrainian troops took eight Russian soldiers prisoner there on Tuesday. Ukraine has withdrawn from one direction in the Kursk region and has entered another one there.
In the Pokrovsk direction in Ukraine’s east, Ukrainian forces faced problems near Kostyantynivka. After two days of “successful battles” Ukrainian troops pushed Russian forces four kilometers away from Kostyantynivka.
Zelenskyi called a possibility of Russia’s advance toward Kherson a “fantasy”. “It is absolutely impossible to cross the river in Kherson region today,” he said.
Putin demands NATO not to expand, sanctions lifted to end war on Ukraine, Reuters says
President Vladimir Putin’s conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia, according to three Russian sources with knowledge of the negotiations, cited by Reuters.
“Putin is ready to make peace but not at any price,” said one senior Russian source with knowledge of top-level Kremlin thinking, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The three Russian sources said Putin wants a “written” pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the U.S.-led NATO alliance eastwards – shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet republics.
Russia also wants Ukraine to be neutral, some Western sanctions lifted, a resolution of the issue of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West, and protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine, the three sources said.
The first source said that, if Putin realizes he is unable to reach a peace deal on his own terms, he will seek to show the Ukrainians and the Europeans by military victories that “peace tomorrow will be even more painful”.
The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment on Reuters’ reporting. Putin and Russian officials have repeatedly said any peace deal must address the “root causes” of the conflict – Russian shorthand for the issue of NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine.
Kyiv has repeatedly said that Russia should not be granted veto power over its aspirations to join the NATO alliance. Ukraine says it needs the West to give it a strong security guarantee with teeth to deter any future Russian attack.
NATO has also in the past said that it will not change its “open door” policy just because Moscow demands it.
