Ukraine has submitted new proposals to American negotiators aimed at ending the four-and-a-half-year war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, calling on Washington to strengthen Kyiv's air defences and increase pressure on Moscow. US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who last visited Moscow in January but have not travelled to Kyiv, are expected to visit both capitals soon.
The diplomatic push came amid heavy fighting. Russian strikes using North Korean ballistic missiles killed seven workers at a steel plant in Zaporizhzhia, owner Metinvest Group said, while attacks across Ukraine killed at least nine people overnight. Russia said it targeted military-industrial facilities and a Nova Poshta logistics hub in Kyiv. Separately, a drone attack forced Sibur's Zapsib Neftekhim petrochemical plant in western Siberia to shut indefinitely.
Zelenskyy also warned that Russia plans to use September's parliamentary elections as a pretext for mass mobilisation of several hundred thousand troops. Meanwhile, Trump announced that Moscow released detained former US Marine Robert Gilman on humanitarian grounds.