He added: “The rescue workers were en route to the village of Myrivska to assist local residents when their fire and rescue vehicle was attacked by an enemy drone”.
Russian strikes on the southern Kherson region injured four people, including a 19-year-old and a 53-year-old city council worker, authorities said, while the governor of the neighbouring Mykolaiv region reported two injured in a drone attack on a civilian car.
A Russian drone also injured a man in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the region’s governor said.
In Russia’s Belgorod region, Ukrainian attacks wounded four people including a border guard, the region’s Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
Both sides also accused each other of violating the ceasefire on the front line. The Russian Defence Ministry accused Ukraine of “16,071 ceasefire violations” over a 24-hour period, including thousands of drone strikes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of conducting assault operations on the battlefield.
Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, the war in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of people and spiralled into Europe’s deadliest since World War II.
US-mediated talks on ending the fighting have shown little progress since February, when Washington shifted focus to its war with Iran.
Trump had announced that the two sides would exchange 1000 prisoners of war each, but it was not clear when this would materialise.
“We expect the American side to be active in ensuring the implementation of these agreements,” Zelenskyy said.
- AFP
