Russian drones have attacked Ukraine’s main Black Sea port in the southern city of Odesa and a railway in the region of Zaporizhia, killing a train driver, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba.

The overnight attacks damaged the infrastructure of the Odesa ⁠⁠port, including berths, warehouses, railway infrastructure and ‌‌port operators’ facilities, Kuleba said in a statement on X on Wednesday.

The attack ⁠⁠on a sorting yard at the Zaporizhia-Live station in ⁠⁠the southern Zaporizhia region killed an ‌‌assistant train driver, he said, adding that the main driver was injured and is receiving treatment at a hospital.

Kuleba said this is “another proof of terrorism, Russia is at war against peaceful people, against those who were simply doing their job and keeping the country moving”.

Russia also launched several drones and missiles on a flight path near the disused Chornobyl nuclear plant, elevating the risk of a significant accident, according to Ukraine’s top state prosecutor.

This comes as Ukraine prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster on Sunday.

Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said 35 Kinzhals – Russian air-launched ballistic missiles – were detected ⁠⁠at various distances within about 20km (12 miles) of the Chornobyl facility or the Khmelnytskyi plant. Of those, 18 passed within about 20km of both sites on the same flight, he added.

“Such launches cannot be explained by any military considerations. It is evident that the flights over the nuclear facilities are carried out solely for the purpose of intimidation and terror,” Kravchenko said.

He added that the Russian military was likely using Chornobyl as an attack route for drones to try to bypass dense areas of Ukrainian air defence coverage.

Ukraine, which ‌‌has limited air defences, concentrates them near populated areas and important infrastructure to maximise their utility against Russian attacks.

The country’s army said it downed 189 out of 215 Russian drones overnight, adding that 24 drones were recorded hitting 13 locations, as well as falling debris at six locations, while many drones remain in the airspace.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defence reported that 155 Ukrainian drones were destroyed overnight, according to local media.

Also overnight in Russia, a Ukrainian drone attack killed two people in the central Russian city of Syzran, home to one of the country’s top air force schools.

“Two people – an adult woman and a child – have died in Syzran following an attack by an enemy drone,” Samara Region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorischev said on social media.

Photos provided by the Russian Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief showed a four-storey apartment building partly collapsed, with rescuers working in the debris.

Failed diplomacy

Recent months have seen several rounds of United States-brokered negotiations fail to bring the warring parties closer to an agreement to stop the fighting, triggered by Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

The process has stalled further since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East, with Washington’s attention having shifted towards Iran.

But even before the US-Israel war on Iran, progress towards a peace deal in Ukraine had been slow, due to differences over the issue of territory.

Ukraine has proposed freezing the conflict along the current front lines.

But Russia has rejected this, saying it wants the whole of the Donetsk region despite it being partly controlled by Ukraine – a demand Kyiv says is unacceptable.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in comments made on Tuesday that were cleared for release on Wednesday that Kyiv has asked Turkiye to host a meeting between Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We asked the Turks about it, we asked some other ⁠capitals,” he said, adding that Ukraine would be ready to consider ‌any place other than Belarus or Russia for a meeting with Putin, which Zelenskyy has long sought to try to hasten a resolution of the more than four-year war.

Belarus is a close ally of Russia and allowed Moscow to use Belarusian ⁠territory to launch its full-scale ⁠invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Sybiha did not say how Ankara had responded to the proposal.

“We addressed the Turks specifically,” he said. “But if another ⁠capital, besides Moscow and Belarus, organises such a meeting, we will go.”

The ⁠Kremlin previously said it is ⁠willing to host Zelenskyy in Moscow, where the Ukrainian leader has said he will not go.