Russia has carried out a massive “demonstrative” attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff. Overnight, Moscow pounded the Ukrainian capital, killing at least two people and wounding 22, including four children. Targets included the southern bridge over the Dnipro River, civilian houses, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station, office buildings and a monastery.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Thursday that numerous sites across the city had been hit and damaged. Twelve regions across the country were bombed including the southern city of Odesa, where the port was badly hit. Zelenskyy said the latest devastating strikes showed that Russia was not serious about peace.
This means there has been no real change in its attitude toward everything that is happening,” he said. During negotiations on Wednesday in St Petersburg, Witkoff lavished praise on Vladimir Putin, who was sitting across the table. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” Witkoff said.
In a social media post after the strikes in the early hours of Thursday, Zelenskyy issued a sardonic reply. They used 21 missiles,” he wrote. Zelenskyy said he was grateful to those among Ukraine’s western partners who saw “the situation for what it is” and “acknowledged the reality” that the Kremlin had little intention of stopping its war.
He called for stronger air defences, Patriot interceptors which could bring down enemy missiles and more sanctions against Moscow. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, added that “appeasement, servility and flattery” would not stop Russian aggression. On Wednesday, the Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Putin had agreed “in principle” to resume three-way negotiations involving Russia, the US and Ukraine after 10 November, a week after the US midterm elections.
In reality, Russia’s real intention is to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving millions in the dark and cold, officials in Kyiv believe. According to Zelenskyy, the US has resumed intelligence warnings of Russian missile attacks. But the White House has so far not reversed the slowdown of Starshield, the military version of Elon Musk’s Starlink internet satellite system, leaving Ukraine unable to intercept enemy drones or carry out mid-range battlefield strikes.
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