Russia launches smallest nighttime attack on Ukraine in months in run-up
to possible peace talks
[May 13, 2025]
By ILLIA NOVIKOV
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched 10 Shahed and decoy drones at
Ukraine in nighttime attacks, the Ukrainian air force said Tuesday, in
its smallest drone bombardment this year as the warring countries
prepare for possible peace talks in Turkey.
The Kremlin hasn’t directly responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy’s challenge for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to meet him in
person at the negotiations in Istanbul on Thursday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused for the second straight day
Tuesday to tell reporters whether Putin will travel to Istanbul and who
else will represent Russia at the potential talks. “As soon as the
president considers it necessary, we will make an announcement,” Peskov
said.
Russia has said it will send a delegation to Istanbul without
preconditions.
The U.S. has been applying stiff pressure on both sides to come to the
table since President Donald Trump came to power in January with a
promise to end the war.
Military analysts say both sides are preparing a spring-summer campaign
on the battlefield, where a war of attrition has killed tens of
thousands of soldiers on both sides along the roughly 1,000-kilometer
(620-mile) front line. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington
think tank, said Monday that Russia is “quickly replenishing front-line
units with new recruits to maintain the battlefield initiative.”
Zelenskyy will not be meeting with any Russian officials in Istanbul
other than Putin, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, said
Tuesday on a YouTube show run by prominent Russian journalists in exile.
Lower-level talks would amount to simply “dragging out” any peace
process, Podolyak said. European leaders have recently accused Putin of
dragging his feet in peace efforts while he attempts to press his bigger
army’s battlefield initiative and capture more Ukrainian land.
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In this photo taken from video distributed by Russian Defense
Ministry Press Service on Monday, May 12, 2025, Russian servicemen
attend a combat training for assault units in an undisclosed
location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Russia effectively rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire
demanded by Ukraine and Western European leaders from Monday, when
it fired more than 100 drones at Ukraine. Putin instead offered
direct peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on Thursday.
Russia shunned the ceasefire proposal tabled by the U.S. and
European leaders but offered direct talks with Ukraine.
Putin has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the Ukrainian
government, especially Zelenskyy himself, saying his term expired
last year. Under Ukraine’s constitution, it is illegal for the
country to hold national elections while it’s under martial law, as
it now is.
In a further complication, a Ukrainian decree from 2022 rules out
negotiations with Putin.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Monday with the top
diplomats from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Poland, who
were meeting in London, to assess “the way forward for a ceasefire
and path to peace in Ukraine,” spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Those European countries had pledged further sanctions on Russia if
it didn’t comply with a full ceasefire that Ukraine had accepted
from Monday, but they made no announcement of additional punitive
measures.
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