Ukraine’s Zelenskyy set to meet UN chief, Turkey’s Erdogan in Lviv
Global News
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hosting both men in the western city of Lviv, where diplomatic efforts to help end the war will be on the agenda.
As a potential power broker, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will use his first visit to Ukraine since the war started nearly six months ago to seek ways to expand the export of grain from Europe’s breadbasket to the world’s needy while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will focus on containing the volatile situation at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hosting both men far away from the front lines, in the western city of Lviv, where diplomatic efforts to help end the war will also be on the agenda.
Meanwhile, the screams of incoming shells still overpowered the whispers of diplomacy.
A total of 11 people were killed and 40 wounded in a series of massive Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
The late Wednesday attack on Kharkiv killed at least seven people, wounded 20 others and damaged residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, authorities said.
At the same time, The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday morning claimed it targeted “a temporary base of foreign mercenaries” in the city of Kharkiv, killing 90 of them.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the three leaders will also discuss the situation at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Europe’s largest, which Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling.
In his nightly video address Wednesday, Zelensky reaffirmed his demand for the Russian military to leave the plant, emphasizing that “only absolute transparency and control of the situation” by, among others, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, could guarantee a return to nuclear safety.