President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russian energy infrastructure is a legitimate target for Ukrainian strikes because the sector generates funds that Moscow uses to produce weapons. In a statement on X, he argued that striking energy facilities was equivalent to striking military targets, saying: "We either build weapons and strike their weapons. Or we strike the source where their money is generated and multiplied. And that source is their energy sector."
Russian attacks on Odesa and Kharkiv overnight killed at least three people, Ukrainian officials said on Monday. Iranian-made drones struck the southern port city of Odesa, igniting fires and damaging apartment buildings and a gas pipeline. Sergiy Lysak, head of the city's military administration, said a 35-year-old man died in the attack. In the Kharkiv region, a mother and her 10-year-old son were killed in a drone strike on the town of Bohodukhiv, and six people were wounded.
In a separate development, authorities in Dubai have arrested and handed over to Russia a man suspected of shooting and wounding Lt Gen Vladimir Alekseyev, a senior officer in Russia's intelligence services. The Federal Security Service (FSB) said a Russian citizen was detained in Dubai, and two accomplices had been identified, one detained in Moscow and another who fled to Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy said the US had given Ukraine and Russia yet another deadline to reach a peace settlement, proposing the war should end by June. He hinted the deadline could be linked to Donald Trump's midterm election campaign. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, told Reuters that only Trump could stop the war and that the two leaders needed to meet in person to resolve the most difficult remaining issues in peace talks.
A Russian airstrike on Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine killed one person and wounded two, causing a fire in a nine-story apartment block. Russia also struck energy infrastructure in the Poltava region, according to Ukraine's state-owned gas company Naftogaz. Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on foreign manufacturers of components for Russian drones and missiles, saying such weapons could not be produced without critical foreign components obtained by circumventing sanctions.
