Ukraine says Russian artillery fire killed a 91-year-old woman in a village in the eastern Donetsk region on Monday in an attack that wounded four others. Separately, one man was reportedly killed and seven others wounded in Russian attacks on the southern Kherson region.

Russia’s latest attacks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a settlement to end Russia’s assault, calling for the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine while Kyiv waits for its application to join NATO. Zelensky made the proposal after meeting with Friedrich Merz, the conservative candidate for chancellor of Germany, who made a surprise trip to Kyiv on Monday. After talks with Zelensky, Merz said that, if elected to lead Germany, he would seek to send long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine.

Friedrich Merz: “We want your army to be capable of hitting military bases in Russia — not the civilian population, not infrastructure, but the military targets from which your country is being attacked. And I said it a few weeks ago in the German parliament: With these range limits, we are forcing your country to fight with one hand tied behind your back. This is not our position.”