Russia launched an intense missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported on Thursday, hours after President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg for the latest round of U.S.-led peace talks.
Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram that Russia launched 21 ballistic missiles toward the capital in three waves.
“Unfortunately, there have been numerous hits and damages in the city: residential buildings, energy infrastructure, infrastructure at one of the railway stations and the metro, shopping centers, and businesses,” Zelenskyy wrote. “Even a monastery was among the damaged objects.”
At least two people were killed and 34 people injured in Kyiv and the surrounding areas, Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia used a mixture of ballistic and cruise missiles in its overnight attacks, none of which were intercepted. Russia also launched 210 drones, the air force said, of which 181 were shot down or otherwise suppressed. The air force reported impacts in 32 locations.
Kyiv was the main focus of the latest Russian strikes. But elsewhere, at least two people were killed and 17 people were injured by a Russian airstrike on a market in the northeastern Kharkiv region, local officials said.
The Russian attacks came on the heels of Witkoff’s latest round of shuttle diplomacy, which saw Trump’s envoy travel first to the Norwegian capital Oslo to meet with Zelenskyy and then to St. Petersburg to meet with Putin.
“These discussions were constructive, and will continue with trilateral talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine at the technical level,” Witkoff said in a post to X.
Zelenskyy said the Russian strikes were “demonstrative” and indicated “no real changes in its attitude towards everything that is happening.” The Ukrainian leader also appeared to take a swipe at Witkoff’s description — made during his meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg — of the Russian president as a “humanitarian.”
“When Russian ballistic missiles are the response to negotiations, real pressure must be applied to Russia to encourage different actions,” Zelenskyy wrote. “Strengthening air defense, the rapid supply of missiles, the ability to destroy ballistic missile launch systems and sanctions for the war — all of this is necessary.”
Ukraine, meanwhile, continued its own long-range strike campaign into Russia, with Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin reporting a major attack on the Russian capital consisting of at least 630 Ukrainian drones — one of the largest such attacks of this year to date.
Several buildings, among them residential properties, were damaged in the attacks, Sobyanin said in posts to Telegram, with at least two people injured in the capital and two in other towns.
In total, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 808 Ukrainian drones overnight, with interceptions reported over 17 Russian regions, occupied Crimea and the Black Sea.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, reported temporary flight restrictions at all four of Moscow’s international airports — Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Zhukovsky and Sheremetyevo — as well as airports in Pskov, Tambov, Sochi, Gelendzhik, Kaluga and Yaroslavl.
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