Ukrainian President Zelenskyy will visit Berlin to meet with new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz

BySTEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press

BERLIN — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet with new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin on Wednesday as Ukraine seeks further military support amid a recent escalation in Russia’s bombing campaign, despite U.S.-led efforts to end the war.

Germany has been the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the United States. Merz said on Monday that Germany and other major allies are no longer imposing any range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine as it fights to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.

Merz has plunged into diplomatic efforts to try to secure a ceasefire and keep Western support for Ukraine intact since becoming Germany’s leader three weeks ago.

Meanwhile, fighting has continued along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, and both sides have conducted deep strikes. Russia launched its biggest drone attack of the war against Ukraine on Sunday.

Russian air defenses downed 296 Ukrainian drones over 13 Russian regions late Tuesday and early Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that air defenses shot down 33 drones heading toward the capital.

Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said that 42 drones were downed. He said that drone fragments damaged three residential buildings in the village of Troitskoye, but no one was hurt.

Moscow airports delayed or diverted hundreds of flights.

Overnight, Russian forces launched an attack on Ukraine using five Iskander ballistic missiles, one guided air-launched missile and 88 drones, Ukraine’s Air Force said Wednesday. Air defense units shot down 34 drones, and 37 drones were jammed.

Ukraine’s railway infrastructure and equipment in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Sumy regions also came under fire overnight and Wednesday morning, Ukraine’s state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia said. No casualties were reported.

In Kharkiv region, railway traffic was temporarily suspended so that police and emergency workers could clear debris from a downed drone that landed on the tracks. In Sloviansk in the Donetsk region, the attack shattered windows at the station building, and drone debris slightly damaged a train car.

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Hanna Arhirova contributed to this report from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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