Strikes kill six in Ukraine a day after drone barrage

KIEV

Air alerts wailed across Ukraine on Sunday as Russian strikes killed at least six people amid refuted media reports of a phone call between Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s election to the White House has the potential to upend the almost three-year conflict and has thrown into question Washington's multi-billion dollar support for Kiev, crucial to its defense.

The Republican said on the campaign trail that he could end the fighting within hours and has indicated he would talk directly with Putin, a major break from the approach adopted by President Joe Biden.

The Kremlin yesterday denied a U.S. media report that Putin and Trump had spoken on the phone last week about the Ukraine conflict.

The Washington Post reported on Nov. 10 that Trump talked by phone on Thursday with Putin, telling him not to inflame the conflict.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that the Washington Post report was "simply false information," denying any phone call took place.

The Post report said that Trump in the call reminded Putin of Washington's sizeable military foothold in Europe.

Trump will not be inaugurated until January and for the moment on the battlefield and in the skies, the conflict shows no signs of subsiding.

Air alerts wailed across Ukraine after Russian air strikes killed at least six people in the south.

"Attention! Missile danger throughout Ukraine! MiG-31K takeoff," Ukraine's air force said in a post on Telegram confirming Russian bombers were airborne.

Earlier, five people were killed in the southern city of Mykolaiv, while a sixth died in Zaporizhzhia in an attack that wounded more than a dozen others, regional governors said.

The strikes came a day after Russia launched 145 drones at Ukraine overnight Nov. 9 into Nov. 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, more than in any single night during the conflict.

Russia also said it had downed 34 Ukrainian attack drones targeting Moscow on Nov. 10, the largest attempted attack on the capital since the start of the war in 2022.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Nov. 10 that the White House was to spend its remaining $6 billion of funding for Ukraine before Trump takes office, warning of the risks of ending U.S. support for Kiev.

Peskov said that so far following the U.S. election "the signals are positive."

"At least he's talking about peace, and not about confrontation," he said in an interview with state media published on Nov. 10.

But he cautioned that Trump was "less predictable" than Harris or Biden" and "what will happen next, it's hard to say."

Trump has not said how he intends to strike a peace deal or what terms he is proposing.

Putin has demanded Ukraine withdraw from swathes of its eastern and southern territory as a precondition to peace talks.

Following Trump's election, Zelensky warned there should be "no concessions" to Putin.

Zelensky has previously said that without U.S. aid Kiev would lose the conflict.