Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy are each courting major allies on Thursday, seeking to prop up their efforts in a war whose fortunes have tilted toward Ukraine in recent days.
In Uzbekistan’s ancient Samarkand, Putin was hoping to break through his international isolation and further cement his ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a geopolitical alliance increasingly seen as potent counterweight to the Western powers.
Putin and Xi were due to meet one-on-one and discuss Ukraine, according to the Russian president’s foreign affairs adviser.
In Kyiv, Zelenskyy was shrugging off a traffic collision the previous night that left him with no major injuries, officials said. On the agenda was a meeting with European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen, who once more showed full commitment to Ukraine’s cause.
Von der Leyen said she would address “how to continue getting our economies and people closer while Ukraine progresses towards accession” to the bloc, which is likely still years away in even the best of circumstances.
While Russian forces in some areas are increasingly being pushed back toward the border, Russia is still striking from behind the front line. It fired missiles at the dam of the reservoir close to Zelenskyy's birthplace, Kryvyi Rih, forcing local authorities into emergency works to make sure there was no threat to the population.
The head of Kryvyi Rih, Oleksandr Vilkul, said Thursday that officials blew up two dams to help the river flow and added levels had begun to subside. Authorities continue their search and rescue efforts. He did not elaborate.
The attack so close to his roots, angered Zelenskyy, saying the strikes had no military value.
"In fact hitting hundreds of thousands of ordinary civilians is another reason why Russia will lose,” he said in his nightly address late Wednesday.
Zelenskyy himself remained in a buoyant mood, saying late Wednesday that almost 400 settlements had been retaken in less that a week of fighting.
“It was an unprecedented movement of our warriors — Ukrainians once again managed to do what many considered impossible,” he said.
Zelenskyy is expected to ask for more Western military material which has been essential in driving the counteroffensive, and request even harsher sanctions against Moscow as the war drags on in its seventh month.
Despite the renewed Ukrainian vigor on the battlefield and the first rumblings of criticism at home, Putin is staying steadfast with his determination to fully subdue Ukraine, said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
After a phone call with Putin earlier in the week, Scholz said that “unfortunately, I cannot tell you that the realization has grown over there by now that this was a mistake to start this war.”
“There has been no indication that new attitudes are emerging there now,” he added.
