Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of a "massive" new Russian attack on Ukraine, saying intelligence suggested Moscow had "readied missiles" for an attack "within the next 48 hours." The warning landed after Russian missile strikes on the Kyiv region on Friday killed at least 10 people and injured around 100 more. Ordinary people were left to absorb the blast radius while presidents, foreign ministers and their military suppliers kept talking about the next move.
Civilian Life Under Fire
Zelenskyy wrote on X: "Please take care of yourselves and pay attention to air raid alerts," a sentence that says more about daily life in wartime than any summit statement ever could. The strikes reportedly hit an arms exhibition where representatives of the Ukrainian defence industry were present. That detail matters. The machinery of war was on display, and the people nearby paid the price. A further five people were killed following guided aerial bomb strikes in Slovyansk, per Zelenskyy. Latvia's foreign minister confirmed that the Latvian consulate in Slovyansk was damaged in the attacks.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat, said in a statement posted to social media that the strike on the consulate "underscores Moscow’s utter disregard for international law." She added: "Latvia has our full support," she added. The language is polished, the institutions are grand, and the result on the ground is still shattered buildings, dead bodies and more air raid alerts. The Brussels apparatus can issue statements all day. It doesn't stop missiles.
Diplomacy in the Shadow of Arms
On Saturday, Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukrainian forces had carried out strikes on a weapons facility in Kirov on Friday night. Ukraine also targeted an oil refinery in Tyumen, a logistics facility in Yekaterinburg and a fuel and lubricants depot in Rostov-on-Don, he said. "We also achieved very strong results with long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea – including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship," he added, while also sharing video footage appearing to show the aftermath of some of the strikes.
The war keeps moving through refineries, depots, logistics hubs and ships. That is what state conflict looks like when stripped of the speeches. Infrastructure becomes a target. Workers, residents and anyone unlucky enough to be nearby live with the consequences. The language of "results" and "strong" strikes sits uneasily beside the dead and injured in Kyiv region, Slovyansk and Zaporizhzhia.
In Ukraine, one person died and nine were injured following a Russian attack on the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, per local authorities. The count keeps climbing in one place while the next round of retaliation is prepared somewhere else. The states involved call it strategy. Everyone else gets the sirens.
Washington, NATO and the Arms Pipeline
Zelenskyy is due to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington next week as the US and Ukraine continue to discuss peace proposals to end the war, which began following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that he had spoken with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, about efforts to end the conflict. "A good and important conversation about how to energize diplomacy and bring peace closer," he said.
Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the ASEAN foreign ministers' summit in the Philippines. According to the Kremlin, Lavrov used the meeting to warn Washington against continuing arms sales to Kyiv. "Lavrov briefed his American counterpart on the actual situation along the front line and emphasised that it would be unacceptable to further arm the Kyiv regime," a statement from the Russian foreign ministry read.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Rubio said the pair had a "good," "frank" conversation but declined to go into more detail. Asked specifically about the Kremlin's statement, Rubio said: "We sell arms via PURL, which is an initiative we have through NATO and that's what we're involved in. There's been no change to our policy in that regard". "We want a peace deal. We want the war to end," he added.
That is the neat little contradiction at the centre of the whole arrangement. The same governments that talk about peace keep the weapons pipeline open through NATO, while the same war keeps chewing through cities, consulates, refineries and people. The institutions keep their language. The bodies keep piling up.