Ukraine reported multiple Russian drone strikes overnight, including the largest such strike on the city of Kriviy Rih since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion, while Russia claimed it downed two Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and seven in other locations.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, repeated that Russia would adhere to a Black Sea cease-fire agreement only "after a number of conditions are met." And Ukraine and Russia traded accusations of attacks on energy facilities, the subject of another agreement the United States said it had reinforced separately with Kyiv and Moscow.
US President Donald Trump said his government was considering the Russian conditions and also allowed that Moscow "could be" dragging its feet as the United States seeks to broker a full cease-fire and an end to Russia's war in Ukraine as soon as possible.
The mayor of Mykolayiv, a Ukrainian port city near the Black Sea sea, said emergency power cuts were implemented following reports of a Russian drone attacks on the region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said drone attacks also damaged infrastructure in the northeastern Sumy region, which borders Russia.
In all, Ukraine's air defense units shot down 56 of 117 drones launched by Russia overnight, the Ukrainian air force said. It said 48 of the drones were lost, suggesting the military used electronic warfare to redirect them.
The reports on March 26 came amid questions about when and how separate agreements the United States reached with Ukraine and Russia a day earlier to halt attacks over the Black Sea would come into force, with doubts stemming in part from conditions set by Moscow.
"Launching such large-scale attacks after cease-fire negotiations is a clear signal to the whole world that Moscow is not going to pursue real peace," Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The statement by the Russian Defense Ministry could not be independently verified, and it did not say whether the drones were aimed at targets on the Black Sea, a focus of fighting in its war against Ukraine, now in its fourth year since the full-scale invasion of February 2022, or were only flying over its waters.
The Defense Min...
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