Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the presence of foreign troops in Ukraine after the war with Russia ends was “important” as Kyiv seeks to work on potential security guarantees with its Western allies.

The issue of on-the-ground “presence, as they say, boots on the ground, is important to us,” Zelensky said, speaking alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who visited Kyiv as it celebrated Ukrainian Independence Day against a backdrop of fading hopes for recent peace efforts.

Carney said earlier that it was not up to Russia to decide on potential security guarantees for Ukraine that Kyiv seeks from Western allies for when the war ends.

“It’s not the choice of Russia how the future sovereignty, independence and liberty of Ukraine is guaranteed. It’s the choice of Ukraine and the decisions of the partners,” Carney told reporters on his visit to Kyiv.

Earlier today, Ukraine launched a wave of drone strikes on Russia, triggering a fire at a nuclear power plant.

After a flurry of diplomacy and a push by US President Donald Trump to broker a summit between his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, the prospects for peace appeared to stall on Friday when Russia ruled out any immediate meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.

The three-and-a-half-year war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, has ground to a virtual stalemate, though Russia has managed to eke out recent advances in a grinding offensive — including claiming two villages in the eastern Donetsk region Saturday.

Ukraine hit back Sunday by sending drones on fresh attacks on Russian territory, including one that was shot down over the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in western Russia, which detonated upon impact and sparked a fire, according to the facility.

The plant said the fire had been extinguished, adding there were no casualties or increased radiation levels.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned of the dangers of fighting around nuclear plants following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian authorities said Ukrainian drones had also been shot down over areas sometimes far from the front, including Saint Petersburg in the northwest.

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Ten drones were shot down over the port of Ust-Luga on the Gulf of Finland, sparking a fire at a fuel terminal owned by Russian energy group Novatek, regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko wrote on Telegram.

Ukraine’s smaller, outgunned army has relied heavily on drones to respond to Russia’s invasion, notably targeting oil infrastructure to hit a key source of Moscow’s revenues to fund the war.

Russia has seen soaring fuel prices since the attacks began.

Ukraine, meanwhile, said Russia had attacked it overnight with a ballistic missile and 72 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones, 48 of which the air force said had been shot down.

A Russian drone strike killed a 47-year-old woman in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, the governor said.

Moscow, Kyiv exchange 146 POWs each

Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine each sent back 146 prisoners of war (POWs) today, Moscow’s defence ministry said, the latest in a series of exchanges that has seen hundreds of POWs released this year.

Large-scale prisoner exchanges were the only tangible result of three rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul between May and July. They remain one of the few areas of cooperation between the two countries since Russia’s offensive began in 2022.

“On August 24, 146 Russian servicemen were returned from the territory controlled” by Kyiv, the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram. “In exchange, 146 prisoners of war of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were transferred” to Ukraine.

Russia also said that “eight citizens of the Russian Federation — residents of the Kursk region, illegally detained” by Kyiv were also returned as part of the exchange.

‘Big power security guarantee and no Nato’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published on Sunday that a group of nations, including United Nations Security Council members, should be the guarantors of Ukraine’s security.

Reuters reported last week that President Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join Nato, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

Lavrov told NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ that Putin and Trump had discussed the issue of a security guarantee for Ukraine and that Putin had raised the issue of the failed Istanbul discussions of 2022.

At those discussions, Russia and Ukraine discussed Ukraine’s permanent neutrality in return for security guarantees from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, and other countries, according to a copy of a draft agreement seen by Reuters in 2022.

Lavrov told NBC that a group including Security Council members should guarantee Ukraine’s security.

“The group could also include Germany and Turkey and other countries,” Lavrov said.

“The guarantors would be guaranteeing the security of Ukraine, which must be neutral, which must be non-aligned with any military bloc and which must be non-nuclear,” Lavrov said, according to a transcript of the interview released by the foreign ministry.

Lavrov also made it clear that Nato membership for Ukraine was unacceptable for Russia, that Moscow wanted protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine and that there was a territorial discussion to be had with Ukraine.

‘Ukraine is a fighter’

The latest fighting came as Ukraine marked the anniversary of gaining independence in 1991 in the breakup of the Soviet Union.“This is how Ukraine strikes when its calls for peace are ignored,” Zelensky said in an Independence Day address.

“Today, both the US and Europe agree: Ukraine has not yet fully won, but it will certainly not lose. Ukraine has secured its independence. Ukraine is not a victim; it is a fighter.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney travelled to Kyiv for the commemorations, calling for “a just and lasting peace for Ukraine”.

Zelensky thanked other world leaders, including Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, King Charles and the pope for sending messages to mark the occasion.

Russia now controls around a fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.

The fighting has forced millions of people to flee their homes and destroyed cities and villages across the east and south of Ukraine.

Putin has repeatedly rebuffed calls from Ukraine and the West for an unconditional and immediate ceasefire.

On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “no meeting” between Putin and Zelensky was planned as Trump’s mediation efforts appeared to stall, while Zelensky accused Russia of trying to prolong the offensive.