Russian drone strike kills boy in Ukraine

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and an oil refinery as U.S. peace efforts continued out of public view.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were set to meet Thursday in Miami with a Ukrainian delegation but there was no official confirmation whether the meeting took place.

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Those scheduled talks came after discussions between President Vladimir Putin and the U.S. envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday.

Previous diplomatic attempts to break the deadlock have come to nothing and the nearly four-year war has continued unabated. Officials largely have kept a lid on how the latest talks are going, though Trump’s initial 28-point plan was leaked.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country’s delegation in Miami wanted to hear from the U.S. side about the talks at the Kremlin.

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Zelenskyy, as well as European leaders backing him, have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling in peace talks while the Russian army tries to press forward with its invasion.

Zelenskyy said in a video address late Thursday that officials wanted to know “what other pretexts Putin has come up with to drag out the war and to pressure Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, who accompanied Putin on a visit to India on Friday, repeated the Russian leaders’ recent criticism of Europe’s stance on the peace talks. Kyiv’s European allies are concerned about possible Russian aggression beyond Ukraine and want a prospective peace deal to include strong security guarantees.

Kyiv’s allies in Europe are “constantly putting forward demands that are unacceptable to Moscow,” Ushakov told Russia’s state-owned Zvezda TV. “Putting it mildly, the Europeans don’t help Washington and Moscow reach a settlement on the Ukrainian issues.”

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Getting China on board with peace efforts

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that he made progress during a visit to Beijing on getting Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s support for peace efforts.

“We exchanged deeply and truthfully on all points, and I saw a willingness from the (Chinese) president to contribute to stability and peace,” Macron said.

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The French president said he stressed that Ukraine needs guarantees that Russia won’t attack it again if a settlement is reached and that Europe must have a voice in negotiations.

“The unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian issue is essential. And I say it, repeat it, emphasize it. We need to work together,” Macron said.

Deadly drone attack

In Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, a Russian drone attack Thursday night destroyed a house where the boy was killed and two women were injured, according to the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko.

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The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 137 drones of various types during the night.

Ukrainian drones attacked a port and an oil refinery inside Russia overnight as part of Kyiv’s campaign to disrupt Russian logistics, Ukraine’s general staff said.

The drones struck Temriuk sea port in Russia’s Krasnodar region and the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region, starting blazes, a statement said. Syzran is about 800 kilomerers (500 miles) east of the border with Ukraine.

The Russian Defence Ministry said only that its air defences intercepted 85 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and the illegally annexed Crimea overnight.

— John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.

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