Russia, Ukraine launch drones before Zelensky-Trump summit

Kyiv and Moscow launched attack drones at each other Sunday, a day before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due in the United States for talks with President Donald Trump on ending three years of war with Russia.

Fighting has continued to rage during a flurry of diplomatic moves to end Moscow's invasion.

Kyiv's air force said Russia attacked Ukraine with 60 Iranian-made Shahed and other drones as well as an Iskander missile.


The governor of the embattled eastern Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin, said Russian attacks killed five people in the area on Saturday.

In Russia, the defence ministry said Kyiv launched 46 drones at the country, mostly over border regions but also over the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine.

The acting governor of the border Kursk region, Alexander Khinstein, said a Ukrainian drone attack killed a man in his car.

The governor of the southern Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, said a railway worker was wounded by a drone in the region.

Ukraine has launched drones into Russia throughout Moscow's full-scale offensive, which has killed thousands of people and displaced millions.

Zelensky is due in Washington on Monday, three days after Trump hosted Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska for talks.

Following the Putin meeting, Trump dropped his push for a ceasefire in Ukraine in favour of pursuing a peace deal -- a position that Moscow has been pushing for.

Putin launched the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Moscow's forces now occupy large swathes of the south and east of the country.