Diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine could resume this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, just hours after Russia unleashed a wave of missiles and drones on Kyiv.
The overnight assault killed three people, according to the capital’s mayor, and sent thick smoke rising over the city as Moscow ended a temporary pause in strikes against Kyiv.
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US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner travelled to Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend, meeting both Mr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The visits produced no immediate breakthrough in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. But Mr Zelensky said there was hope that direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine could resume in the coming weeks.
“If all sides agree, we also want to hold it in the autumn. If September works out, then it would be great.
The earlier, the better,” he said, without giving details about a possible location or confirming that a venue had been chosen.
Several previous rounds of negotiations have failed to bring the two sides closer to an agreement.
Trust remains scarce, while neither Moscow nor Kyiv has shown any clear indication that it is prepared to abandon its core demands.
Firefighters work to extinguish fire following the Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv
Explosions rang out across Kyiv in the early hours of this morning, sparking fires and driving residents into basements and metro stations for shelter.
“The moment the US president’s peace envoys left, Putin launched another massive, horrific attack against Kyiv,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said on social media.
“His ballistic missiles speak louder than his words on diplomacy.”
Russia’s army said it had carried out a “massive strike” against military-industrial facilities, logistics hubs and storage sites in Kyiv and surrounding areas.
United Nations-verified figures show that civilian deaths in Ukraine are now occurring at their highest rate since the opening months of Russia’s invasion.
In the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula, Russian-installed officials said a Ukrainian attack had killed two people.
The journeys by Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner marked Washington’s renewed attempt to broker an agreement between the two countries after months of limited engagement.
Mr Witkoff described the discussions with Russia and Ukraine as making “substantive progress”, fuelling hopes that three-way peace negotiations could be revived.
“President Trump is working hard to stop the killing and work towards a lasting and durable peace,” he said on X.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia mainly targeted the Kyiv and Odesa regions
Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner met Mr Putin in Moscow on Saturday before travelling to Kyiv for separate discussions with Mr Zelensky, their first official visit to the Ukrainian capital.
The Kremlin yesterday said it had not ruled out three-way negotiations. However, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it is too early to say anything about the venue or the exact dates at this stage”.
In an interview with US news outlet Axios, Mr Zelensky said Washington was seeking to reduce tensions before winter and suggested that Mr Putin did not want to antagonise Mr Trump ahead of the US midterm legislative elections in early November.
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Since invading Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has targeted the country’s energy grid each winter, leaving millions without power and heating in temperatures that have fallen as low as -20C.
Mr Zelensky said the weekend discussions had included US proposals concerning energy infrastructure, grain shipments and oil and gas exports, but he offered no further details.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today appeared to reject a Turkish proposal for a truce covering strikes in the Black Sea, calling it “unrealistic” and “impossible to monitor”.
For now, the two sides remain far apart over the conditions for ending the war.
Moscow is demanding that Ukraine surrender territory in the eastern Donetsk region that remains under Kyiv’s control, while also giving up Western military support.
Kyiv has dismissed those terms as capitulation, warning that they would give Russia time to prepare another offensive aimed at installing a Moscow-friendly puppet government.
