Zelensky urges US to sanction Russia 'now' over strikes
· RTE.ieUS President Donald Trump's administration should immediately impose new sanctions on Russia over recent deadly strikes on Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The comments came after Mr Zelensky announced he planned to meet Mr Trump in late September, amid US-led efforts to broker an end to the four-and-a-half year Ukraine war.
"Sanctions need to be imposed now," Mr Zelensky told the Yalta European Strategy forum.
"Honestly, I sometimes do not understand why decisions cannot be made quickly," he added.
Mr Zelensky separately called for a truce with Russia covering strikes on energy targets, saying Ukraine was ready to hit back if Russia attacked his country's energy grid over the winter.
"Russia knows that if they strike, they will receive the same in return," he said.
The Ukrainian leader's comments come as Russian strikes using jet-powered drones on two petrol stations in Kyiv killed two people.
Ukraine carried out drone attacks on Russia, killing two people in the Tula region, and one in the Kursk region, officials said.
With fighting on the front line largely stalled, both sides have increasingly struck logistics and other economic targets in recent weeks to try to damage each other's war effort.
For a fortnight, Russia has been carrying out almost constant attacks with faster jet-powered drones that have killed a number of Kyiv residents and disrupted daily life in the Ukrainian capital.
The action was paused while US peace negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited the city last weekend.
"Russia's escalation with jet-powered 'shaheds' is gradually becoming increasingly terrorist in nature," President Zelensky said on X.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war, triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The two people killed in Kyiv were at one of the two petrol stations that were attacked, officials said, one of them by a double-tap strike.
The assaults followed what appeared to be the first strike on a Kyiv petrol station yesterday.
In recent months, Russia hit 300 petrol stations, mainly in or near Ukraine's frontline regions.
"There is no military objective behind such strikes. This is terror of the civilian population," said Bohdan Kukura, Chief Executive of Ukrainian oil company Ukrnafta.
A further 12 people, including a 12-year-old boy, were hurt in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
An attack on a residential building injured eight people overnight.
President Zelensky said that Russia had hit a building used by Ukraine's largest mobile operator Kyivstar in Kyiv, and there were strikes in eight other Ukrainian regions.
Kyivstar's network continued to operate, according to the company.
A woman was killed in the area surrounding the capital, the regional governor said.
Ukraine, in turn, has attacked Russia's largest online retailers and oil refineries, often deep inside the country, as well as energy and fuel logistics in regions of its own territory occupied by Russian forces.
President Zelensky said that his country's forces had hit an enterprise and an oil industry facility in the Saratov and Volgograd regions.
He also reported strikes on unnamed targets in other areas and the Black Sea.
Governor of Russia's Tula region Dmitry Milyayev said that two people had been killed and three injured in Ukrainian drone attacks overnight.
A 37-year-old man died in a drone strike by Ukraine in the Kursk region, its governor said.
Russian e-commerce company Ozon said a drone attack had caused a fire at its logistics hub in the central Volga River city of Saratov.
Over two dozen warehouses owned by Ozon and fellow online retailer Wildberries have been hit in recent attacks which Kyiv casts as part of a campaign against economic infrastructure underpinning Russia's war in Ukraine.
Ukraine's military said it had hit a Russian oil refinery in Saratov.
Two people were injured in a missile attack that struck two residential buildings and damaged an industrial facility in Volgograd, south of Saratov, local authorities said.
The Volgograd oil refinery, operated by energy company Lukoil, is on the outskirts of the city.
The governor of Russia's Perm region in the Ural Mountains said that two industrial facilities had been attacked by drones.
US House of Representatives to consider sanctions on Russia
Amid President Zelensky's calls for sanctions, the US House of Representatives will begin consideration next week of a Russia sanctions bill championed by late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
The measure has passed the Senate but faces stiff opposition from Democrats in the lower chamber.
The House of Representatives' Rules Committee said that it scheduled a meeting to consider the measure for Monday.
Approval by the Republican-majority committee would pave the way for a vote in the chamber later in the week.
Mr Graham, a South Carolina Republican who died in July, was among Ukraine's most outspoken allies in the US Congress.
His bill aims to increase economic pressure on Moscow by sanctioning Russian officials and authorising stiff tariffs on China, India and other countries to reduce their dependence on Russia's oil and gas.
The Senate passed the measure last month by 86 votes to 11.
However, the support from both Republicans and Democrats that propelled the bill through the Senate might not be enough to secure passage through the House of Representatives.