At least five civilians have died after Russia launched drones, missiles and guided aerial bombs at Ukraine overnight in a major attack that officials there said targeted civilian infrastructure.
Moscow sent more than 50 ballistic missiles and around 500 drones into nine regions across Ukraine, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday morning.
NATO member Poland said it scrambled aircraft early on Sunday to ensure its air safety after Russia launched the airstrikes on Ukraine, with Ukrainian officials reporting missiles and drones raining down on the Lviv region near the Polish border.
On Saturday, a Russian drone strike against a railway station hit a passenger train, killing one and wounding 30, as Moscow stepped up strikes on Ukraine’s rail and power networks.
Meanwhile, German media reported that drones had been spotted at airports and military installations across Germany over the past two days, suggesting sightings this week at Munich Airport, which forced the closure of both runways, were the tip of the iceberg.
There is mounting concern that Russia could be behind a growing number of recent drone incursions in the airspace of Ukraine’s European allies.
Watch: Zelensky shares video of Russian drone strike on Ukrainian passenger train
Trump says Putin’s offer on nuclear arms control ‘sounds like a good idea’
US president Donald Trump said Russian president Vladimir Putin’s offer to voluntarily maintain limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons “sounds like a good idea.”
Putin last month offered to voluntarily maintain limits capping the size of the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals set out in the 2010 New START accord, which expires in February, if the US does the same.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House, when asked about Putin’s offer.
Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia last week had said Moscow was still waiting for Trump to respond to Putin’s offer to voluntarily maintain the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons once a key arms control treaty expires.
Any agreement on continuing to limit nuclear arms would stand in contrast to rising tensions between the United States and Russia since Trump and Putin met in Alaska in mid-August given reported incursions of Russian drones into Nato airspace.
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