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Brussels, Belgium: NATO military chiefs were set Wednesday to discuss the details of eventual security guarantees for Ukraine, pushing ahead the flurry of global diplomacy aiming to broker an end to Russia’s war.
But even as diplomatic efforts continued Wednesday, Russian forces claimed fresh advances on the ground and Ukrainian officials reported more deaths from Moscow’s missiles.
Few details have leaked on the virtual meeting of military chiefs from NATO’s 32 member countries, which is due to start at 2:30 p.m. (1230 GMT).
But on Tuesday evening top US officer Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held talks with European military chiefs on the “best options for a potential Ukraine peace deal,” a US defense official told AFP.
US President Donald Trump brought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders to the White House Monday, three days after his landmark encounter with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Trump, long a fierce critic of the billions of dollars in US support to Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022, earlier said European nations were “willing to put people on the ground” to secure any settlement. He ruled out sending US troops but suggested it would provide air support instead.
But while Trump said Putin had agreed to meet Zelensky and accept some Western security guarantees for Ukraine, Kyiv and Western capitals have responded cautiously, as many of the details remain vague.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Telegram Wednesday that its troops had captured the villages of Sukhetske and Pankivka in the embattled Donetsk region.
They are near a section of the front where the Russian army broke through Ukrainian defenses last week, between the logistics hub of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka.
In the eastern Kharkiv region, the prosecutor’s office said a Russian drone strike on a civilian vehicle had killed two people, aged 70 and 71.
Russian glide bombs hit housing in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka overnight, trapping as many as four people under rubble, said the town’s military administration chief Sergiy Gorbunov.
And Russia aerial attacks on the northeastern town of Okhtyrka in the Sumy region wounded at least 14 people, including three children, according to regional governor Oleg Grygorov.
Zelensky said these latest strikes showed “the need to put pressure on Moscow,” including through sanctions.

KHARTOUM: An armed assault on a hospital in the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan killed one person, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Wednesday, adding it had been forced to suspend operations.
Five people were also wounded in last week's attack, one of them a health worker supported by MSF, it added.
Since the war between Sudan's regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023, more than 120 aid workers have been killed, according to the United Nations.
"Humanitarian needs in Sudan have reached unprecedented levels. Yet those who step forward to help -- our frontline aid workers -- are being attacked, detained, harassed and even killed," UN humanitarian coordinator Luca Renda said Tuesday.
The hospital in Zalingei, capital of Central Darfur state, was attacked by armed relatives of a patient who had died of a gunshot wound. They then clashed with other armed individuals.
A hand grenade went off in front of the emergency room, causing the casualties.
The facility was the only referral hospital serving the area's population of around half a million, who are currently facing a deadly cholera outbreak.
According to Sudan's doctors' union, 90 percent of the country's hospitals have been forced to close at some point during the war. Many have been repeatedly bombed, stormed by fighters and looted of all supplies.
Doctors have themselves been attacked and forced to operate on fighters at gunpoint.
Nearly 25 million people in Sudan face dire hunger, with millions cut off from life-saving aid.