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Russian Attack Kills Two, Injures 11 in Ukraine’s Sumy, Authorities Say 

Ukrainian servicemen ride atop a tank after returning from Russia, near the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Sumy region, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP)
Ukrainian servicemen ride atop a tank after returning from Russia, near the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Sumy region, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP)
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Russian Attack Kills Two, Injures 11 in Ukraine’s Sumy, Authorities Say 

Ukrainian servicemen ride atop a tank after returning from Russia, near the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Sumy region, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP)
Ukrainian servicemen ride atop a tank after returning from Russia, near the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Sumy region, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP)

A Russian attack overnight damaged a factory in Ukraine's northern city of Sumy, killed two women and injured at least 11 people, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday. 

Ukraine's Prosecutor General's office said the factory manufactured packaging for baby food, juices and household products. 

One injured person died later in hospital, regional prosecutors said on Telegram, and the body of another victim was retrieved from the rubble. 

The airstrike caused a fire, prompting authorities to tell residents to stay inside and close windows because of air pollution. 

The northern Sumy region borders Russia's region of Kursk where Ukraine has made a major cross-border incursion since Aug. 6 while Moscow's troops press towards the strategic hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. 

Ukrainian border areas suffer from constant Russian attacks, and Kyiv said the Kursk operation was aimed at protecting its settlements. 

Separately, a drone attack hit an industrial facility in Poltava in central Ukraine without causing any casualties, regional governor Filip Pronin said. 

The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 12 out of 18 Russia-launched drones overnight over five regions. Four more drones fell over the Ukrainian territory. 

Russia also used an Iskander-M missile during the attack, the air force added. It did not give additional details. 

In the southern port city of Odesa, authorities reported an explosion on Thursday evening after a ballistic air alert without providing details. 

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians but thousands have been killed and injured in its strikes during the war, which began when Russian troops invaded its neighbor in February 2022. 

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Chinese Leader Xi Meets US National Security Adviser as the Two Powers Try to Avoid Conflict

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)
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Chinese Leader Xi Meets US National Security Adviser as the Two Powers Try to Avoid Conflict

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)

Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday as the latter wound up a three-day visit with the stated aim of keeping communications open in a relationship that has become increasingly tense in recent years.
Sullivan, on his first trip to China as the main adviser to President Joe Biden on national security issues, earlier met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and a top general from the Central Military Commission, The Associated Press said.
Starting with a trade war that dates back to 2018, China and the United States have grown at odds over a range of issues, from global security, such as China’s claims over the South China Sea, to industrial policy on electric vehicle and solar panel manufacturing. Sullivan’s trip this week is meant to keep the tensions from spiraling into conflict.
“We believe that competition with China does not have to lead to conflict or confrontation. The key is responsible management through diplomacy,” he told reporters at a news conference shortly before leaving Beijing.
Both governments are eager to keep relations on an even keel ahead of a change in the US presidency in January. They said they remain committed to managing the relationship, following up on a meeting between Xi and Biden in San Francisco last November.
“While great changes have taken place in the two countries and in China-US relations, China’s commitment to the goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged,” Xi said.
“President Biden is committed to responsibly managing this consequential relationship to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict or confrontation, and to work together where our interests align,” Sullivan said.
The two countries agreed to work toward a phone call between Xi and Biden in the coming weeks, and Sullivan indicated the two could meet in person at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or Group of 20 summits later this year.
“The likelihood is they’ll both be there and if they are, it would only be natural for them to have the chance to sit down with one another,” he said.
Xi and Sullivan’s meeting also touched on the issues of American citizens detained in China, on Taiwan and also on the clashes between China and Philippines in the South China Sea.
The two also discussed China’s support for Russia, as a recent US assessment found that the country was exporting technology that Russia uses to manufacture missiles, tanks and other weaponry. They also discussed efforts to end the Ukraine war, but Sullivan said they did not make any progress on that issue.
Sullivan said an agreement to have a call between the military commanders in the Indo-Pacific region was a “very positive outcome” of his meetings and that they hope to deepen military-to-military communication so it can be passed on to whoever succeeds Biden as president.
The decades-old issues surrounding Taiwan have taken renewed prominence as the island’s ties with China become increasingly strained over Beijing's claims that Taiwan is part of China.
Taiwan, a self-governing island that split from communist China in 1949, has rejected Beijing’s demands that it accept unification with the mainland. The US is obligated under a domestic law to provide the island with sufficient hardware and technology to deter invasion.
Danny Russel, a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York and who served on the national security council in the Obama administration, said the meeting between Sullivan and Xi was particularly important because Sullivan was seen by the Chinese leadership as “a direct extension” of the US president and that Sullivan’s messaging was viewed as “coming straight from Biden.”
Sullivan also met one of China’s vice chairs of the Central Military Commission, Gen. Zhang Youxia, on Thursday morning — a rare meeting with a visiting US official.
Zhang said that reunification of Taiwan with the mainland is “the mission and responsibility” of the military, according to a statement from China’s Defense Ministry.
“China demands that the United States stop military collusion between the US and Taiwan, stop arming Taiwan and stop spreading false narratives about Taiwan,” the statement said, without elaborating on what the false narratives are.
Sullivan said “it is rare that we have the opportunity to have this kind of exchange” and underscored “the need for us to responsibly manage US-China relations.”
A White House statement said the two had “recognized the progress in sustained, regular military-military communications over the past 10 months” and noted an agreement announced the previous day to hold a telephone call between commanders at the theater-level in the near future. On Taiwan, the US statement said only that Sullivan had raised the importance of cross-Strait peace and stability.
China suspended communication between the two militaries and in a few other fields after a senior US lawmaker, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan in August 2022. Talks were only gradually resumed more than a year later, after Xi and Biden met outside San Francisco in November.
A theater-level call would be between Adm. Samuel Paparo, who heads the US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii, and his Chinese counterpart, said Russel, of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
“This theater command-level dialogue is critical for crisis prevention but something the Chinese military has been resisting,” said Russel, a former assistant US secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Paparo said this week that the US military is open to consultations about escorting Philippine ships in the South China Sea, where they have clashed with Chinese ships trying to block them from small islands and outcroppings that both countries claim.