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Russia fires three waves of ballistic missiles at Kyiv hours after agreeing to new talks
Zelenskyy mocked the US envoy's praise of Putin as a 'humanitarian' after overnight strikes on the capital and Odesa's ports left at least two people dead.
Key points
- Russia launched 21 ballistic missiles at Kyiv in three waves overnight, Zelenskyy said.
- At least two people were killed and 34 injured, including five children.
- The strikes came hours after the Kremlin agreed in principle to three-way talks after 10 November.
Russia fired three waves of ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight into Thursday, killing at least two people, only hours after the Kremlin said it was ready to return to US-brokered peace talks.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 21 ballistic missiles were launched at the capital, and that 34 people were injured, five of them children. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said homes, transport infrastructure and other civilian sites were damaged in several districts. In Dniprovskyi district, on the eastern bank of the Dnipro, one person was killed and six were wounded, a child among them, and fires broke out. Russia also carried out what Ukrainian officials called “massive strikes” on port facilities in the Odesa region.
A jab at Washington’s envoy
Zelenskyy aimed his response as much at Washington as at Moscow. US envoy Steve Witkoff, who met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg this week, had described the Russian leader as “a humanitarian”.
“Three waves of ballistic missiles have been launched at Kyiv by Russian ‘humanitarians’ since yesterday evening,” Zelenskyy wrote. “Almost immediately after another round of talks, Russia launched a pointed attack.”
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha was blunter. “Appeasement, servility, and flattery will not stop this war. Only strength will,” he said.
Talks after the midterms
The attack came the morning after Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said Putin had agreed “in principle” to resume three-way negotiations between Russia, the United States and Ukraine after 10 November, about a week after the US midterm elections. The offer followed Witkoff’s meeting with Putin.
Zelenskyy had backed the idea of new talks and said on Wednesday that Ukraine was ready to freeze the war along the current front line and move to diplomacy. But he was guarded about the outcome. “We’ll see what happens this time,” he said, shortly before missile alerts sounded over Kyiv.
What comes next
The two sides were also reported to have swapped the remains of soldiers killed in the war, with Russia handing over 252 bodies and receiving 25, according to Belarusian state media.
For Kyiv, the night’s strikes are a reminder of a pattern Ukrainian officials have pointed to through every round of diplomacy this year: Moscow agrees to talk and keeps attacking. With negotiations not due to start for nearly three weeks, the coming nights will show whether the Kremlin’s offer changes anything on the ground.