![\"US](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/HROWWTB3SW45IAC4OTAAXTLCFQ.jpg\")
US special envoy Steve Witkoff meeting Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Wednesday. Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov\/AFP\/Getty Images <\/p>\nRussia carried out a heavy aerial attack on Ukraine that included cluster munitions, just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin met a US envoy in St Petersburg to discuss the resumption of peace talks. <\/p>\n
Moscow unleashed a barrage of more than 20 missiles on Kyiv overnight that killed two people and injured more than 30, Ukrainian authorities said. <\/p>\n
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said three ballistic missiles that hit the capital had been equipped with cluster warheads designed to spread damage over a wide area. <\/p>\n
One exploded in the historic Pechersk district in the city centre and damaged several restaurants, shops and monastery buildings. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe choice of weapon was deliberate, the choice of target area was deliberate, and so was the intent to inflict as much loss and damage on civilians as possible,\u201d Zelenskiy wrote on X. <\/p>\n
He added that Ukrainian intelligence services warned that Russia would amplify its air campaign in the coming weeks and was \u201ctaking advantage of the slowdown in air defence supplies from our partners\u201d. <\/p>\n
Kyiv also launched more than 600 drones towards Moscow, where three people were injured, according to Russian officials<\/p>\n
The Russian strikes follow a renewed US diplomatic push, with president Donald Trump\u2019s envoy Steve Witkoff meeting Zelenskiy and several European leaders in Oslo this week. <\/p>\n
Witkoff then headed to St Petersburg for talks on Wednesday with Putin, whom the envoy hailed as a \u201chumanitarian\u201d. <\/p>\n
US special envoy Steve Witkoff meeting Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Wednesday. Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov\/AFP\/Getty Images <\/p>\n
Witkoff and Putin discussed resuming talks with Ukraine in mid-November, and a possible leaders\u2019 summit between China, Russia and the US in Shenzhen next month, according to Russian officials. <\/p>\n
Russia did not commit to renewed talks, while European officials familiar with the Oslo discussions are sceptical the US diplomatic push is making headway. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost immediately after another round of talks, Russia launched a pointed attack,\u201d wrote Zelenskiy on Thursday. \u201cThis means there has been no real change in its attitude towards everything that is happening,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack damaged an ambulance station as well as metro infrastructure near the city\u2019s South Bridge, a key thoroughfare over the Dnipro river.<\/p>\n
Authorities recorded damage across six districts. A shopping centre in the Obolonskyi district was also heavily damaged in the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cOvernight, Kyiv residents heard what Russian \u2018humanism\u2019 truly sounds like,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s foreign minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cAppeasement, servility and flattery will not stop this war. Only strength will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Russian officials said that Ukrainian drones overnight had injured three people. Moscow\u2019s airports suspended operations for several hours overnight, and media reports said a military facility, the 75th arsenal, had been damaged. <\/p>\n
The attack was the third largest this year by the number of drones launched towards the Russian capital, according to the tallies reported by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy told journalists late on Wednesday that Kyiv had \u201creceived feedback\u201d that Ukraine, Russia and the US had agreed to revive trilateral talks, which were put on ice at the onset of the war in Iran earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy said they hoped the negotiating teams would meet in early November, though no date has been confirmed.<\/p>\n
The talks this week failed to deliver concrete progress, even as Kyiv pushed for an energy ceasefire to stop Russia from pummelling Ukrainian power plants and energy infrastructure in advance of winter. Trump has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine cease its own strikes targeting Russian refineries and oil terminals.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a Thursday press briefing that Abu Dhabi was being considered as the venue for a three-way meeting between Russia, the US and Ukraine, though he said no decision had been made on who would represent Moscow.<\/p>\n
Moscow sees \u201cthe increasing activity of certain European capitals trying to understand what is going on\u201d, said Peskov, but added Russia\u2019s interests were not being taken into account. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems we are still a long way from such objective statements,\u201d he said. US media reported that Trump hoped to secure a peace agreement at the G20 summit in Miami in December, but Peskov said no decision had been made on whether Putin would travel to the event.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s air force said 210 long-range drones also took part in the attack on Kyiv overnight and said it had shot down 181 of the unmanned aerial vehicles.<\/p>\n
The report did not mention any missile intercepts, highlighting Ukraine\u2019s enduring shortage of sophisticated anti-air missiles even as Moscow expands its campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy complained to US senators on Monday that \u201cthe Pentagon is delaying the delivery\u201d of crucial interceptor missiles Kyiv relies on to protect its cities against Russian ballistic missile launches.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026. Additional reporting: Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia carried out a heavy aerial attack on Ukraine that included cluster munitions, just hours after Russian President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,43,40,38,41,39,9688,90,5936,58419],"class_list":["post-662486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine-crisis","tag-us","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}