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KYIV, Ukraine, Sept 20, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr 
Zelensky said Saturday he would meet US counterpart Donald Trump on the 
sidelines of the UN General Assembly next week as Russia intensified deadly 
strikes across his country.

Russia carried out one of its largest aerial attacks, firing 40 missiles and 
some 580 drones at Ukraine in a nightime barrage that killed at least three 
people and wounded dozens, Zelensky said.

A Ukrainian strike killed four people in Russia's southwestern Samara region, 
the local governor said, in one of the deadliest Ukrainian strikes since 
Russia launched its invasion in 2022.

Zelensky said he would discuss security guarantees for Ukraine and sanctions 
on Russia during the talks with Trump in New York.

Ukraine has insisted on Western-backed security guarantees to prevent future 
Russian attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin has however warned that any 
Western troops in Ukraine would be unacceptable and legitimate targets.

A US-led push for a quick end to the war has stalled and Russia effectively 
ruled out a Putin-Zelensky meeting -- something that Kyiv says is the only 
way towards peace.

"We expect sanctions if there is no meeting between the leaders or, for 
example, no ceasefire," Zelensky said in comments released by the Ukrainian 
presidency.

"We are ready for a meeting with Putin. I have spoken about this. Both 
bilateral and trilateral. He is not ready," Zelensky added.

In Russia's latest aerial assault, "a missile with cluster munitions directly 
struck an apartment building" in the central city of Dnipro, Zelensky said on 
social media.

He posted pictures of cars and a building on fire and rescuers carrying a 
person to safety amid rubble scattered nearby.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, the strikes killed one person and wounded at 
least 30 people, with one man in a serious condition, regional governor 
Sergiy Lysak said.

- 'Intense' fighting -

The strikes come a day after three Russian fighter jets violated the airspace 
of Estonia -- a NATO member on the alliance's eastern flank -- an allegation 
Moscow denied.

But it triggered fears in the West of a dangerous new provocation from Moscow 
after Poland last week complained that around 20 Russian drones overflew its 
territory.

Zelensky repeated the call for "joint solutions" to shoot down drones over 
Ukraine "together with other countries".

Russia, which has been chipping away at Ukrainian territory for months, 
announced on Saturday its troops had captured the village of Berezove in the 
Dnipropetrovsk region.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, there were "intense actions" in the key 
area of Kupiansk, Zelensky said, referring to a rail hub Ukraine recaptured 
in a 2022 offensive.

In Russia, four people were killed "in an enemy drone attack last night," 
Samara governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said on social media.

He earlier said "fuel and energy facilities" were targeted, without 
specifying the damage.

Ukrainian General Staff said "strategic objects of the Russian aggressor were 
struck", adding its forces "inflicted damage" on the Saratov Oil Refinery and 
struck the Novokuybyshevsk Oil Refinery in the Samara region.

A source in Ukraine's SBU security agency said Ukrainian drone strikes "have 
stopped the operation of a number of oil pumping stations in Russia".

"It is this infrastructure that brings oil-dollar superprofits to the Russian 
budget, which fuel the war against Ukraine. Work to block these cash flows 
will continue," the source said.

The Russian defence ministry said its air defence alert systems "intercepted 
and destroyed" 149 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 27 over the Saratov 
region and 15 over the Samara region.

Three rounds of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul this year 
only produced prisoner exchanges. Russia has maintained hardline demands, 
including that Ukraine fully cedes the eastern Donbas region -- parts of 
which it still controls.

Kyiv has rejected territorial concessions and wants European troops to be 
deployed to Ukraine as a peacekeeping force, something Moscow considers 
unacceptable.