"Negotiations must be intensified, everything possible must be done to achieve a ceasefire. And the Russian side must stop hiding from decisions." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his usual evening message posted on social media, announced that the Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council, Rustem Umerov,"has reported that he has proposed a new meeting to the Russian side for next week." Zelensky listed the points of what he would like to see in a new round of talks: "Prisoner exchange. Return of children. End of killings. A meeting at the leader's level is needed to truly ensure peace, a lasting peace," he continued."Ukraine is ready for such a meeting."

While the Ukrainian president is relaunching negotiations on the diplomatic front, Russia's massive attacks against Ukraine continue on the ground. Meanwhile, the new sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia and President Donald Trump's threat to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin would like to force him to seriously sit down at the negotiating table, but so far there have been no signs of this from the Kremlin. In recent months, Russia has in fact intensified long-range air strikes against Ukrainian cities, as well as front-line strikes and bombings, thus defying the tycoon's warnings. And while the tsar intensifies his warmongering strategy with a resulting trail of death, Moscow, for its part, had to briefly suspend train traffic in the southern region of Rostov after a drone attack by Kiev, over seventy of which were shot down, which left one railway worker injured.

Odessa, in the south of the country, was heavily targeted by Russian ferocity, where at least one person was killed and several injured, including a child, according to the reconstruction of the city's mayor, Gennady Trukhanov, and the head of the regional military administration, Oleg Kiper, who reported buildings and apartment buildings damaged by the raids. There was also widespread fire in the Dnipropetrovsk region, with at least two victims, while some civilian structures such as a clinic, a school, a community center, and several private homes were gutted. Zelensky denounced the rain of missiles and drones, speaking of over 300 unmanned attack aircraft and over 30 missiles of various types."The regions of Donetsk, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Kherson, Volyn, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Odessa, and Zhytomyr were affected," the Ukrainian leader said, adding that"critical infrastructure was damaged in Sumy, leaving thousands of families without electricity. The Ukrainian government," Zelensky added,"is working with European countries outside the European Union to join" the sanctions regimes set out in the 18th package of sanctions against Russia.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration may redistribute arms supplies to allies, preparing to give future priority to countries willing to supply Ukraine with weapons, including Patriot air defense systems from their stockpiles. Specifically, the US administration has moved Germany to the top of the list to receive Patriot systems, which would allow Berlin to transfer the two systems it currently has to Ukraine, the newspaper reports, citing three US officials. The United States promise to quickly replace Germany's Patriots is the first example of the Pentagon facilitating arms deliveries to Ukraine since President Trump announced earlier this month that he was in favor of sending more weapons. At the same time, the move also highlighted the difficulty of supplying Patriots and other weapons to Kiev, as production in the West struggles to keep pace with Ukraine's requests for assistance.