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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed deals on security and energy cooperation with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Saturday, he said, as Kyiv seeks to leverage its experience in defending its airspace from Russia. After the latest wave of conflict in the Middle East that began with US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran in late February, multiple nations have sought Ukraine’s assistance and expertise in downing Iran’s long-range drones. Zelenskyy said the two countries had signed an agreement relating to military-industrial cooperation.
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Aliyev said military-industrial partnerships between the two countries had “wide-ranging perspectives” and that the two leaders had discussed joint defence production. He did not specify that he had signed any deals.
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Zelenskyy has also sought to reinvigorate peace talks with Russia, which were being mediated by the US until it became more focused on its campaign against Iran. The Ukrainian leader said he had discussed with Aliyev the possibility of having a meeting between Ukraine and Russia in Azerbaijan.“We are ready for the next talks [to be] in Azerbaijan if Russia will be ready for diplomacy,” he said.
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Ten people have been killed in Russian attacks on the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro and other regions. Regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha said eight people were killed and 49 injured in Dnipro, a repeated target in more than four years of war with Russia. “For more than 20 frightening hours, the Russians attacked Dnipro in waves,” Hanzha wrote on Telegram. “They hit with missiles and drones. They hit deliberately. They hit residential areas.” Two more were killed in northern Ukraine.
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A Ukrainian drone attack on Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea killed one man and wounded three other people, the city’s Moscow-installed governor said on Sunday. “43 UAVs (drones) were shot down in total. Unfortunately, there are fatalities,” Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram. He said a man born in 1983 was killed while inside a vehicle, and three people were hospitalised.
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The speaker of Russia’s parliament, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, arrived in North Korea on Saturday to attend an event to commemorate Pyongyang’s deployment of troops to help Moscow in the Ukraine conflict, the Tass news agency reported. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s Duma, was welcomed by Jo Yong-won. North Korea has sent an estimated 14,000 troops to fight with Russian forces against Ukraine. More than 6,000 of them have been killed, according to South Korean, Ukrainian and western officials.
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A drone crashed in Romania on Saturday after Russian strikes in neighbouring Ukraine near a river separating the two countries, authorities said, adding that more than 200 people had been evacuated. Romania, a Nato member, has repeatedly seen its airspace violated and drone fragments fall on its territory since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But this was the first time that debris from Russian drones has caused material damage on its territory, according to local media.
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“A drone crashed in a populated area,” with a “possible explosive charge,” emergency services said in a statement. No casualties were reported, but an electricity pole and an outbuilding of a house were damaged, authorities said, adding that gas supplies in the area had been cut as a precautionary measure.
