The China Mail - Russian attacks kill 14 in Ukraine ahead of Trump-Zelensky talks

The early-morning drone attack on Kharkiv reduced part of a five-storey residential building to rubble and sparked fires on at least three floors, governor Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram.

The emergency services posted videos showing rescuers trying to break through rubble to free a trapped resident.

"Seven civilians, including two children, have been killed in the attack," Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on social media, adding that 23 people were wounded.

The city near the Russian border was also hit hours earlier by a ballistic missile that wounded at least 11 people, Mayor Igor Terekhov said.

Klymenko said another three people were killed and 23 wounded in a strike on the Zaporizhzhia region.

In the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Russian shelling killed four people in settlements still under Ukrainian control -- Dobropillia and Kostiantynivka, regional prosecutors said.

Russia also struck the southern Odesa region with drones early Monday, sparking a fire at a fuel facility, regional governor Oleg Kiper said.

The attacks came as Zelensky and his European allies headed to Washington for talks aimed at ending the three-and-a-half-year war.

US President Donald Trump said ahead of Zelensky's arrival in Washington that Ukraine would not be able to reclaim the annexed Crimean peninsula or enter NATO as part of a peace deal.

Zelensky has repeatedly pushed back against pressure to cede Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

Russia, which has been advancing for months on the battlefield, has proposed that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbas region in exchange for freezing the frontline in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, where the main cities are still under Kyiv's control.

J.Thompson--ThChM