Ukraine on Thursday accused Russia of failing to change its position on the war by firing a wave of ballistic missiles just after US envoy Steve Witkoff met President Vladimir Putin to discussthe resumption of peace talks. Air raid sirens sounded throughout the night and into the day in Kyiv, where two people were killed and more than 30 other people wounded, city authorities said. Two women aged 50 and 60 were killed and dozens more people were wounded in an attack on a crowded market in the eastern city of Lozova.
Two were wounded in the Moscow region after Ukraine launched its own large-scale drone attack. The strikes came after the Kremlin said it was willing to restart trilateral talks with Kyiv and Washington next month, but dismissed new ideas brought by Witkoff that were developed with European countries and Ukraine. In all, a dozen Ukrainian regions were hit overnight, including residential houses, energy sites, shops, cafes and a monastery damaged in Kyiv, where strikes have intensified before winter sets in.
Read moreUkraine’s Pavlohrad refuses to yield to Putin despite unrelenting bombardment All families and children were told to evacuate the frontline towns of Kramatorsk and neighbouring Sloviansk in the east after a spate of attacks killed dozens of civilians. Zelensky said the onslaught began “almost immediately” after Witkoff and Putin held hours-long talks in Saint Petersburg, scoffing at US President Donald Trump’s envoy’s description of the Russian leader as a “humanitarian”. Ukraine has repeatedly called on its allies, including the United States, to supply it with advanced US-made Patriot interceptors to shoot down missiles and fast-moving attack drones.
Zelensky warned of more strikes to come and suggested that Moscow – emboldened by an easing of sanctions pressure – was “clearly taking advantage of the slowdown in air-defence supplies from our partners”, in a clear nod to Washington. In Brussels, NATO said it was allowing Ukraine to buy weapons through the alliance’s central procurement agency on a “case-by-case basis”. Trump sought an optimistic tone as his envoy returned from Russia and on Wednesday said negotiators were “maybe now the closest we’ve been” to ending the war.
But in Kyiv and European capitals, hopes for a breakthrough were slim, with many worried the White House was siding with Moscow. To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading.
To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with US special envoy Steve Witkoff during a meeting at the Constantine Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, October 21, 2026. via - Gavriil Grigorov Zelensky accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians in Kyiv, including with cluster munitions, which disperse in the air, showering dozens of smaller explosive devices or bomblets indiscriminately over a large area. Human Rights Watch in August reported an apparent increase in the use of the weapons, which are fired in rockets and missiles or dropped from aircraft.
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