Zelenskyy,EU Leaders to Discuss Support07/13 06:25

   

   (AP) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due in Paris on Monday 
for talks with two dozen European leaders helping Kyiv fight Russia's invasion, 
with the war now in its fifth year.

   European foreign ministers were also meeting separately in Brussels where 
they were expected to discuss Ukraine's needs and Russia's threats to the 
continent.

   Both Kyiv and its European backers are keen to press home Ukraine's recent 
successes and compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to 
the fighting, although Moscow has shown no willingness to compromise despite a 
yearlong peace effort by the Trump administration.

   Ukraine's advances in drone technology have in recent months given it an 
edge, analysts and Western officials say. Its strikes on supply routes behind 
the front line have robbed the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield and 
made its progress slow and costly, they say.

   Kyiv's forces have especially targeted supplies to Crimea, triggering the 
worst fuel crisis on the Black Sea peninsula since it was illegally annexed by 
Russia in 2014, and delivering a blow to the Kremlin's narrative that Moscow is 
winning the war.

   Zelenskyy is keen to move quickly on plans for jointly developing with 
European countries anti-ballistic air defenses that can help stop Russia's 
devastating attacks on Ukraine's power grid.

   "Everyone in the world sees that Ukraine needs more air defense, more 
protection of life," Zelenskyy said Monday on social media after the latest 
overnight attacks across Ukraine.

   U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge last week to give Ukraine a license to 
produce Patriot air-defense systems could mark a major breakthrough for Kyiv. 
However, experts and Ukrainian officials warn that turning the idea into real 
weapons would likely take years.

   European leaders demonstrate commitment to Ukraine

   The meeting in Paris of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, which brings 
together more than 30 countries supporting Ukraine, was expected to include 
around 25 heads of state and government.

   The notably high number of leaders appeared to be a demonstration of 
long-term commitment to Ukraine and a warning to Russia, as Moscow tests 
Europe's resilience.

   French Foreign Minister Jean-Nol Barrot announced Monday that he would 
summon the Russian ambassador to France and impose sanctions against Russian 
hackers. He told BFMTV-RMC that the issue is about "a vast cyber campaign aimed 
at sabotage and espionage, carried out by Russia in about 10 European 
countries."

   Ukraine's neighbors have also felt the war's impact.

   In the latest incident, a drone launched during Russian overnight attacks on 
Ukraine's Odesa region crashed and exploded on Moldova's territory, Moldova's 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday. It said the incident was "serious and 
unacceptable."

   Zelenskyy was traveling to the French capital after the death of U.S. Sen. 
Lindsey Graham, one of Kyiv's staunchest supporters in Washington, and amid a 
major and incomplete reshuffle of his government that saw Prime Minister Yulia 
Svyrydenko step down on Sunday.

   Ukraine fires more than 300 drones toward Moscow

   Ukraine has aimed at targets deep inside Russia with its domestically 
developed long-range drones and missiles, matching and sometimes exceeding the 
number of drones used in relentless Russian aerial attacks.

   Russian air defenses downed 350 Ukrainian drones heading toward Moscow since 
late Sunday, including 50 near the capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

   Andrei Vorobyov, the head of the region around Moscow, said that 81 
Ukrainian drones were downed overnight.

   Vorobyov said that three people were killed and another three were injured 
by the Ukrainian attack in the Pionersky settlement just outside Istra in the 
western part of the Moscow region. Five private houses were set ablaze, he said.

   The Ukrainian air force, meanwhile, said Russia launched 134 long-range 
strike drones and three guided aviation missiles at Ukraine. Air defenses shot 
down or jammed all the missiles and 123 drones, while six drones caused damage 
at five locations, it said.

   In the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, over 70 people were 
hospitalized after a series of recent Russian strikes damaged 11 apartment 
blocks, according to military administration head Ivan Fedorov.

   Russia says it thwarted a major Ukraine drone operation

   Russia's Federal Security Service, the country's main domestic security 
agency, said it had thwarted a Ukrainian plan for a drone attack on the 
Ukrainka air base in the far eastern Amur region, and the Shagol air base in 
the Chelyabinsk region in the southern Urals.

   The agency said small drones were smuggled into Russia's western Bryansk 
region using air balloons and bigger transport drones, and then taken by car 
close to the air bases by Ukrainian agents.

   The agency said it had arrested Ukrainian agents and their accomplices and 
seized 24 drones. It said the purported plot was part of a series of planned 
drone strikes on military infrastructure "unprecedented in its scale and the 
level of threat."

   A Ukrainian covert operation just over a year ago, code named Operation 
Spiderweb, destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Moscow's strategic bomber 
fleet with drones sneaked into Russian territory, according to Ukrainian 
officials.