Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting with European leaders gathered in Denmark for a summit on security and defense on October 2 after Russia continued its strikes on its western neighbor, hitting a rail depot in Odesa.
“Russia tries every day to destroy one of the foundations of Ukraine’s resilience –our infrastructure, which holds the country together,” Oleksiy Kuleba, Ukraine’s minister of territorial development, wrote on Telegram on October 2.
Kuleba said the strike on the national rail operator in Odesa injured a train driver, who sustained shrapnel wounds. He said another attack struck infrastructure in country’s north, forcing delays in railway operations in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions.
He added that missile and drone strikes were also reported in Ukraine’s Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhya regions.
The aftermath of a Russian strike on a railway depot in Odesa on October 2.
Zelenskyy, who arrived in Copenhagen for Europe’s defense summit in response to recent drone sightings that disrupted air traffic in Denmark, suggested that Russian violations of airspace “could happen anywhere.”
With Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk claiming at the same meeting that provocations from Russia in the Baltic Sea happen “almost every day,” Zelenskyy urged a response, suggesting Europe needs defense forces that “know how to deal with drones.”
“If the Russians dare to launch drones against Poland, or violate the airspace of northern European countries, it means this can happen anywhere… We need a fast and effective response,” Zelensky told the gathering of leaders.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who is hosting the October 2 summit, earlier called drone incursions into European countries a “hybrid war,” saying she sees Ukraine as “the first line of defense.”
“From a European perspective, there is only one country that is willing to threaten us, and it is Russia — and therefore we need a very strong answer,” Frederiksen said prior the meeting.
The summit in Copenhagen comes at a time when prospects for peace seem as distant as ever as Russia’s full-scale invasion nears the four-year mark.
As the US effort to broker a peace deal has brought little progress, the positions of Ukraine and Russia remain far apart. US President Donald Trump has so far not succeeded in organizing a trilateral summit or a face-to-face meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents.
