Ukraine fires nearly 1,200 drones at Russia as US-led talks consider wider European security

Ukraine fired almost 1,200 drones at Russian targets overnight in one of its biggest aerial attacks since Moscow’s invasion nearly five years ago.

Meanwhile, negotiators raised the stakes in talks to stop the fighting by including for discussion wider European security arrangements that have been in place since the end of the Cold War. That has alarmed European leaders and placed a question mark over NATO’s future role.

After two days of talks with Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Abu Dhabi this week, U.S. envoys went in person to brief Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was meeting with European Union leaders in Dublin, Ireland.

Further talks are planned as negotiators seek a breakthrough in peace efforts, according to U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

Kushner said Russia has agreed to include Europe in upcoming talks, after Moscow's long insistence that the continent’s governments were part of the problem because they were supporting Ukraine.

Europe’s presence at the negotiating table will allow negotiators “to address the broader postwar European security arrangements alongside the territorial issues between Ukraine and Russia,” Kushner said on X.

As European leaders scrambled to find an envoy to the talks, they were also wary of Russian maneuvering as well as Trump’s praise for Putin and his administration’s sharp criticism of Europe.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said Friday that Europe must insist on a ceasefire before taking the negotiations further — the opposite of what Putin demands.

“If we start to talk about what Russia is asking regarding the security architecture, we actually walk into the traps that Russia is setting us,” she said in Dublin.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden insisted that Europe must take its fate into its own hands.

“We cannot let neither the Americans nor the Russians decide about our future,” Frieden said.

Moscow is aiming “to dismantle NATO and the post-Cold War European security architecture,” the Institute for the Study of War said in an assessment late Thursday.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed that Russia is open for contacts with the Europeans.

“Once we understand (Europe’s) true intentions and their readiness to facilitate the peace process, then it will be possible to make a decision on holding a dialogue regarding a settlement in Ukraine in an expanded format,” Peskov said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 1,198 Ukrainian long-range drones between late Thursday and early Friday. However, strikes on three Russian regions killed seven people, including a 12-year-old, and wounded 17, local officials said.

The massive Ukrainian barrage appeared designed to show that Kyiv is holding its own in the war, countering Moscow’s insistence that a Russian victory is inevitable.

Kyiv’s forces are using drones and ground robots to help defend against Russia’s army along the about 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) front line snaking down eastern and southeastern Ukraine.

With its troops largely bogged down on the battlefield, Moscow has used strategic bombardment of civilian areas to hurt Ukraine.

Russia launched 117 drones against Ukraine overnight, killing at least two people, including a 17-year-old, authorities said.

Thirteen people, including five children, were injured in a single Russian attack on southern Zaporizhzhia on Friday, according to the State Emergency Service.

Rescue workers freed 14 people who were trapped in their apartments. The number of casualties is being clarified, the service said.

The attack damaged apartments and the facade of two five-story residential buildings.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands of civilians, analysts and humanitarian organizations say.

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AP reporters Sam McNeil in Dublin, Susie Blann in Kyiv, Ukraine and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal contributed to this story.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine