President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed agreements on security and energy cooperation with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Saturday, as Kyiv seeks to leverage its experience in defending its airspace from Russia. Zelenskyy said the two countries had signed an agreement relating to military-industrial cooperation, while Aliyev noted that such partnerships had “wide-ranging perspectives” without confirming any specific deals.
The Ukrainian leader also discussed the possibility of hosting peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Azerbaijan. “We are ready for the next talks [to be] in Azerbaijan if Russia will be ready for diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said, amid efforts to reinvigorate negotiations mediated by the US.
Meanwhile, Russian attacks killed ten people in Ukraine, including eight in the south-eastern city of Dnipro and two in northern regions. Regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha reported 49 injured in Dnipro, describing 20 hours of wave attacks with missiles and drones targeting residential areas. In Russian-annexed Crimea, a Ukrainian drone attack on Sevastopol killed one man and wounded three others, according to Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev.
In a separate incident, a drone crashed in Romania after Russian strikes near the border, causing material damage and forcing the evacuation of over 200 people. Emergency services reported no casualties but noted damage to an electricity pole and an outbuilding, with gas supplies cut as a precaution. The speaker of Russia’s parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, arrived in North Korea to commemorate Pyongyang’s deployment of troops to Ukraine, where an estimated 14,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent, with over 6,000 killed, according to officials.
