A mass Russian drone attack has killed at least three people and injured 30 in The Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Meanwhile, US secretary of state Marco Rubio is in Paris for talks on ending the war with Emmanuel Macron. Recap on analyst Michael Clarke’s latest Ukraine war Q&A below.
Thursday 17 April 2025 08:15, UK
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Live reporting by Brad Young
Pictures show the destruction wrought by Russian drones on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, where at least three people have been killed and 30 injured.
Firefighters were photographed tackling blazes trigged by the blasts in buildings and cars.
Russia plans to use an American-owned company seized by the Kremlin to supply food to the Russian army, according to a letter from the firm to Russia’s prosecutor general.
The correspondence, seen by Reuters, said the canned food maker Glavprodukt was taken under state control in October to ensure future supplies to the national guard and defence ministry.
Glavprodukt was seized from Los Angeles-based Leonid Smirnov, who Russian prosecutors have accused Smirnov of moving about 1.38 billion roubles ($17m) out of Russia from 2022 to 2024, the RBC daily reported in March.
A hearing is scheduled for 18 April. Smirnov denies wrongdoing and says the lawsuit is a “Russian-style corporate raid” to steal his company.
The letter said the Russian state has appointed Glavprodukt’s new director general at the request of food producer Druzhba Narodov, the sole supplier to Russia’s national guard for 2019-20.
A person familiar with the matter said that Glavprodukt never previously supplied Russia’s army.
Two of Donald Trump’s top national security aides are set to hold talks in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron today.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff are expected to hear European concerns about the war in Ukraine as the US attempts to negotiate a peace settlement.
Donald Trump’s frustration with Russia and Ukraine has grown during the talks, which have largely excluded the European continent.
European leaders have grown more concerned as Trump has made diplomatic gestures to Vladimir Putin and applied pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said he hoped Trump and his administration would see that Putin was “mocking their goodwill” following Moscow’s missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy last week, which killed at least 35 people.
Besides Macron, the French foreign ministry said Rubio will also meet his counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot to discuss Ukraine and the Middle East.
Separately, French defence minister Sebastien Lecornu is travelling to Washington to meet with his counterpart, US Pete Hegseth, as well as with Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, and Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence.
A Russian mass drone attack has killed three people and injured at least 30 in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional governor said.
Serhiy Lysak said one child was among the dead and five were among the wounded.
A young woman and an elderly woman were killed and 16 people were being treated in hospital, he said, adding that the attack triggered several fires.
Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov said one strike came within 100 metres of the municipal offices, and at least 15 dwellings have been damaged, alongside an educational institution and a food processing plant.
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, governor Oleh Syniehubov said a Russian missile attack injured two people in the town of Izium.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said it destroyed or intercepted 71 Ukrainian drones over six Russian regions overnight, 49 of which were in the Kursk region.
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
We’ll be bringing you updates and analysis throughout the day, but before we begin, here is a recap of the key developments over the last day.
Thanks for following along today, that’s it for our live coverage.
Before we go, here’s a round-up of the key events today:
If you want more coverage, military analyst Professor Michael Clarke answered your questions on the war in Ukraine earlier today.
He looked at Donald Trump’s position when it comes to Russia – and how two particular issues may be influencing his stance there.
And as for Russia, Clarke explained why they can’t have all of Ukraine and what will happen when the time comes for someone to succeed Putin.
Watch the full Q&A here…
The former governor of Russia’s Kursk region has been detained, according to state media.
TASS says Alexei Smirnov, who resigned over his handling of the Ukrainian invasion of the region in December last year, is “suspected of fraud”.
It cited law enforcement as saying both he and his former first deputy have been detained as a result.
No further details have been shared.
Smirnov was head of the western Russian region when Ukrainian troops came across the border in August 2024. A long and bloody Russian and North Korean offensive has pushed most of the Ukrainian forces out since then.
Russia has broken the US-backed energy ceasefire more than 30 times, according to Ukraine.
In March, a Washington-brokered agreement saw both Ukraine and Russia commit to not targeting oil fields, power stations and other key energy infrastructure on both sides of their shared border.
But Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Heorhyi Tykhyi, told a news briefing that Russia attacked energy facilities in Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south and Poltava in the centre of the country over the past 24 hours alone.
“We consider that the energy ceasefire began on 25 March,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we can see that Russia is violating this agreement almost on a daily basis. Not even one month has passed since the agreement was made, but Russia has already violated this agreement over 30 times.”
Russia has also accused Ukraine of breaking the deal.
While US envoys head to Paris for talks on Ukraine with Europe, Russia’s president has announced he will speak to partners in the Middle East.
Vladimir Putin and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani will discuss efforts to find a possible peace deal when they meet in Moscow tomorrow.
Qatar has tried to mediate talks in the past to no avail, but Doha along with other states in the Middle East (like the UAE and Saudi) have worked to secure prisoner swaps and the return of children throughout the conflict.
“There will definitely be an exchange of views between Putin and the Emir of Qatar on Ukrainian affairs,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Kyiv remains in contact with Beijing over the capture of two Chinese nationals Ukraine says were fighting for Russia.
Kyiv summoned a Chinese diplomat last week to discuss the matter which could hurt bilateral relations, Ukrainian foreign minister Heorhii Tykhyi told a news briefing today.
China is an ally of Russia and has been accused of helping its war in Ukraine, though Beijing has repeatedly denied allegations that it has supplied Kremlin forces with weapons.
Catch up on the capture of those two Chinese nationals in this story…
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Ukraine war latest: Top US official to hold Ukraine talks with Macron; child killed in Russian mass drone attack – Sky News
