By Dmitry Antonov
MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Thursday that it was still interested in pursuing peace talks on Ukraine despite Russia conducting a large and deadly overnight strike on Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials said the attack had killed at least 15 people, including four children, in a strike on the Ukrainian capital that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said was Moscow’s answer to diplomatic efforts to end its war.
Asked if there was a contradiction between the latest attack and Moscow’s stated desire to make progress in peace talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that both sides were continuing to attack each other.
“The special military operation continues. You can see that strikes on Russian infrastructure, often on Russian civilian infrastructure, by the Kyiv regime are also continuing. The Russian armed forces are also carrying out their tasks,” Peskov said.
He said that Russia was successfully hitting military and military-related infrastructure. “At the same time, Russia remains interested in continuing the negotiation process in order to achieve our goals through political and diplomatic means.”
Peskov has repeatedly said that Russia does not deliberately target civilians and directs its attacks only against military objects.
Ukrainian officials say scores of civilians have died in recent months during Russian strikes on densely populated areas, and thousands since the start of the war.
The Russian Defence Ministry said earlier on Thursday it had targeted military-industrial facilities and military air bases in what it called a big overnight “group strike” that had used hypersonic “Kinzhal” missiles, drones and high-precision air-launched missiles.
The Ukrainian military said it had used drones to strike two Russian oil refineries overnight, part of a rolling campaign by Kyiv to hit the most important sector of President Vladimir Putin’s economy. Russia confirmed one of the refineries had been hit and that a fire there had been put out.
Asked about the refinery attacks, Peskov said that Russia’s domestic fuel market was fully supplied and that the situation was under control.
Asked about the prospect of a ceasefire in the air between Russia and Ukraine, something that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has suggested might be an option, Peskov said no agreement had been reached on such a truce and that negotiations needed to be conducted discreetly.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Andrew Osborn/Gleb Stolyarov; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
