KYIV (AFP) - Russia and Ukraine exchanged airstrikes overnight as talks were set to resume in Brussels on Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction and security guarantees once the fighting ends.
The latest Russian aerial barrage underscored the scale of the rebuilding task, as did the ongoing search for people missing beneath rubble after a deadly airstrike in southern Ukraine.
Ukraine launched hundreds of drones at Russian targets. The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces shot down nearly 500 drones overnight.
A Ukrainian attack killed five people and wounded 13 others on Thursday in Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Luhansk region, Kremlin-installed officials said.
The strike hit a bus traveling between the regional capital, Luhansk, and a nearby town, said Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-backed leader. Two teenagers were among the wounded, he said. Further details weren’t immediately available.
Meanwhile, rescue teams continued to search for more than 30 people believed trapped in the wreckage of a former school and a nearby shelter hit by Russian guided bombs on Monday.
The attack in Komyshuvakha, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, struck as residents waited for humanitarian aid. It was one of the deadliest strikes in the region since the full-scale invasion began nearly five years ago.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 43 people have been confirmed killed. Efforts to identify some of the victims using DNA samples from relatives were continuing. Zelensky said in a message on X that one person who had been reported missing was found alive.
Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said that talks will continue for a second day at NATO headquarters in Brussels focused on postwar reconstruction, funding for 2027 and security guarantees backed by the Ukrainian government’s Western allies.
NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said that representatives from the countries and organizations would meet again “to discuss the way forward on bringing about a just and sustainable end to the war in Ukraine.”
The Brussels meetings are taking place days before negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for talks aimed at trying to end the war. Late Wednesday, Zelensky said that he had held a 90-minute conversation with U.S. negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
On Thursday, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said thar the country has received 4.36 billion euros from the European Union for budget support and defense.
The funding, provided under the Ukraine Support Loan, includes 3.7 billion euros in macro-financial assistance and 660 million euros earmarked for defense, Koretskyi said on Telegram.