Kazakh President Urges Peace as Ukraine Intensifies Strikes on Russia

MOSCOW- Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring the war in Ukraine to an end during talks in Siberia on Saturday, as Ukraine launched a fresh wave of drone strikes deep inside Russian territory and both sides reported civilian casualties in the conflict.

The appeal came during a Russia-Kazakhstan forum in Omsk, hours after Ukrainian drones targeted infrastructure in Russia, including an oil refinery in the Siberian Tyumen region. Russian authorities said Ukraine launched more than 300 drones across the country on Saturday, extending Kyiv’s campaign to strike military and energy-related targets far from the front line.

The governor of the Tyumen region said a local oil refinery caught fire following the attack. In the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, Russian officials suspended a national athletics competition because of drone threats, while online retailer Wildberries temporarily evacuated employees from one of its facilities as a precaution.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had struck the Siberian refinery and had also targeted a military manufacturing facility in Russia’s Kirov region for a second consecutive day. Kyiv has repeatedly said its long-range strikes are intended to weaken Russia’s military capabilities and increase pressure on Moscow to negotiate an end to the war.

Speaking alongside Putin in televised remarks, Tokayev said the conflict had claimed too many young lives and should be brought to a halt.

“It is a shame, young people are dying… All this has to be stopped,” Tokayev said, proposing that the fighting be frozen and that negotiations resume from the framework of earlier talks held in Istanbul. He added that the origins of the conflict were “not understandable.”

Putin responded by saying he would brief the Kazakh leader on what he described as the details of the conflict. The Russian president has consistently maintained that Moscow intends to secure control over the remainder of eastern Ukraine by force, while internationally backed efforts to broker a settlement have made little progress.

The exchange was notable because senior leaders allied with Moscow have rarely called publicly for the fighting to end while appearing alongside Putin.

Both Russia and Ukraine reported fresh civilian casualties on Saturday.

Russian-installed authorities in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region said a Ukrainian strike on a tourist camp in the Azov Sea resort town of Kyrylivka killed 12 people, including four children. They added that eight people remained missing as rescue operations continued.

Officials installed by Moscow also reported one death in the occupied part of the Kherson region, while Russian authorities said two people were killed in border villages during Ukrainian attacks. Ukraine had not commented on the reported strike in Kyrylivka.

Kyiv, meanwhile, said Russian attacks killed five people in eastern and southern Ukraine. President Zelensky said three people died after a Russian strike on a Nova Poshta courier facility in the northeastern city of Sumy.

Ukraine’s Transport Minister Mykola Kalashnyk said Russian forces also struck a civilian cargo vessel carrying nearly 2,800 tonnes of corn as it departed the Black Sea port of Odesa. The ship caught fire and emergency responders rescued seven crew members and a Ukrainian pilot, while two crew members remained missing, according to the minister.

The latest exchanges come after the United Nations warned that civilian casualties have increased in recent months as the war, now approaching four and a half years, continues with intensified long-range strikes by both sides.

Russia also announced that it would extend its fuel export ban until the end of the year, as Ukrainian drone attacks continue to disrupt energy infrastructure and logistical operations inside the country.