Zelenskyy to host Lviv talks with UN chief, Turkish leader to discuss grains, tensions at nuclear plant 

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — As a potential power broker, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will use his first visit to Ukraine since the war started nearly six months ago to seek ways to expand the export of grain from Europe’s breadbasket to the world’s needy while U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will focus on containing the volatile situation at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hosting both men far away from the front lines, in the western city of Lviv, where diplomatic efforts to help end the war will also be on the agenda.       

Meanwhile, the screams of incoming shells still overpowered the whispers of diplomacy.

A total of 11 people were killed and 40 wounded in a series of massive Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The late Wednesday attack on Kharkiv killed at least seven people, wounded 20 others and damaged residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, authorities said.

At the same time, The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday morning claimed it targeted “a temporary base of foreign mercenaries” in the city of Kharkiv, killing 90 of them.