Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia is "doing everything" to ensure that proposed peace talks in Istanbul on June 2 yield no results after a Russian large-scale drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city left almost a dozen people injured.
The overnight attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv near the Russian border was a "typical strike on civilian life," Zelenskyy wrote on his X page.
"Russian strategy is simply to destroy lives. And Russia will not abandon this strategy without sufficient pressure," he added.
Oleh Synyehubov, the head of the Kharkiv region, said in a post on Telegram that at least 11 people were injured in the attack early on May 30, including two children.
Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the strikes targeted "a municipal enterprise." He added that the attack consisted of eight Iranian-made Shahed drones and that it also damaged more than 30 residential buildings.
Hours later, Donald Trump's special envoy, Keith Kellogg, said the US president was growing "frustrated" with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, over delays in reaching a cease-fire to help bring an end to Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.
Russia has pounded Ukrainian targets in recent weeks amid intensified pressure to agree to a cease-fire to pave the way for a comprehensive peace plan more than three years after the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine agreed in April to a US proposal for a 30-day cease-fire, but Russia has balked at the plan and many of Ukraine's allies have accused Putin of trying to drag out the process so he can take advantage of the current situation on the battlefield, where Russia has been gaining ground in territories it claims to rule.
Much of the destruction has been centered around civilian infrastructure, which Russia claims it doesn't target despite mounting evidence that appears to show the opposite.
"His [Trump's] frustration is that he's put forward some reasonable proposals and reasonable discussions and he's seen a level of unreasonableness [from Putin] that really frustrates him. It frustrates me as well," Kellogg said in an interview with ABC News.
Trump, who made reaching a peace deal quickly one of his foreign policy cornerstones during last year's election campaign, warned on May 28 that he would determine within "about two weeks" whether Putin is serious about ending the fighting.
Moscow said on May 30 that it was sending a team of negotiators to Istanbul on June 2 for a possible second round of direct talks with Ukraine, though Kyiv has yet to confirm whether it will attend.
Kellogg said in the ABC interview that US, German, French, and British officials will be in Istanbul on June 2 when a meeting may take place between Russian and Ukrainian delegations.
Russia has said it would use the meeting to present a "memorandum" outlining its terms for a peace settlement. Kyiv said it was ready to take part but wanted to see Russia's proposals for ending the war first.
Zelenskyy said on May 30 that he told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that a cease-fire was needed to move forward toward a settlement of the war.
"There must be a cease-fire to move further toward peace. The killing of people must stop," Zelenskyy said on Telegram after his conversation with the Turkish leader. "We share the view that this meeting cannot and should not be empty."
Zelenskiy also said that the two men discussed the possibility of organising a four-way meeting with the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the United States.
Zelenskyy met earlier on May 30 with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Kyiv. He said afterward that Russia's refusal to present the memorandum before the talks is leading to no breakthrough in a potential second round of discussions.
"Unfortunately, Russia is doing everything it can to ensure that the potential meeting brings no results," Zelenskyy said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry earlier announced that its delegation will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a Russian political scientist and former culture minister who led Russia's negotiating team on May 16 during the first round of direct talks.
Previously, Ukraine’s delegation closely matched the level of its Russian counterparts, with the exception of Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who was occupied with leading the latest prisoner exchange on Ukraine’s side.
