Russian attacks kill at least 7 in Ukraine as talks on peace plan continue

Russia launched a wave of attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, overnight, with at least seven people killed in strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure. A Ukrainian attack on southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes, authorities said.

The attacks came during a renewed U.S. push to end the war that has raged for nearly four years and talks about a U.S. peace plan. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with Russian officials for several hours in Abu Dhabi yesterday, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

Driscoll, who became part of the U.S. negotiating team less than two weeks ago, is heading up the latest phase of talks involving the terms of a possible peace settlement with Russia.

The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, declined to give details on how long the negotiations would last or what topics were being discussed, but noted that the Ukrainians were aware of the meeting and all sides have indicated they wanted to reach a deal to halt the fighting as quickly as possible.

Road to peace will be long

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday that “the list of necessary steps to end the war can become workable” after progress was made in Sunday’s talks between U.S. and Ukrainian delegates in Geneva. He said he planned to discuss “sensitive” outstanding issues with President Donald Trump.

Rustem Umerov, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, wrote on social platform X on Tuesday that the Ukrainian leader hoped to finalize a deal with Trump “at the earliest suitable date in November.”

Russian officials have been reserved in their comments on the peace plan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow is in touch with American officials about peace efforts.

“We expect them to provide us with a version they consider an interim one in terms of completing the phase of coordinating this text with the Europeans and the Ukrainians,” Lavrov said.

European leaders have cautioned that the road to peace will be long.

‘Glass rained down’

Russia fired 22 missiles of various types and over 460 drones at Ukraine overnight, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. The strikes knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Kyiv. Video footage posted to Telegram showed a large fire spreading in a nine-story residential building in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.

Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said 20 people were injured in Kyiv. The Russian Defense Ministry said it targeted military-industrial facilities and energy assets. The strikes were a response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian objects in Russia, it added.

Liubov Petrivna, a 90-year-old resident of a damaged building in the Dniprovskyi district, told the AP that “absolutely everything” in her apartment was shattered by the strike and “glass rained down” on her.

Petrivna said she didn’t believe in the peace plan now under discussion: “No one will ever do anything about it. Putin won’t stop until he finishes us off.”

In a subsequent attack wave, four people were killed and three were injured in a strike on a nonresidential building in Kyiv’s western Sviatoshynyi district, according to the head of Kyiv city administration, Tymur Tkachenko.

Neighboring Romania and Moldova reported that a handful of drones violated their airspace.

Strikes hit energy infrastructure

Ukraine’s energy ministry said energy infrastructure had been hit, without giving details. Ukraine’s emergency services said six people, including two children, were injured in a Russian attack on energy and port infrastructure in the Odesa region.

A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s southern Rostov region overnight killed three people and injured eight others in the city of Taganrog not far from the border in Ukraine, Gov. Yuri Slyusar said in an online statement.

The attack damaged private houses and multistory residential blocks, unspecified social facilities, a warehouse and a paint shop, Slyusar said.

Russian air defenses destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones overnight above various Russian regions and the occupied Crimea, the Russian Defense Ministry said yesterday, noting that 116 of the drones were shot down over the Black Sea.

It was the fourth-largest Ukrainian drone attack on Russia, according to an AP tally.

‘No capitulation’

The latest attacks followed peace-plan talks in Switzerland between U.S. and Ukraine representatives.

Oleksandr Bevz, a delegate from the Ukrainian side, told the AP that the talks had been “very constructive” and the two sides were able to discuss most points.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said yesterday that Moscow has not received the updated U.S. peace plan that emerged from that meeting.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that the U.S. plan for Ukraine “goes in the right direction” but also cautioned it must not be “a capitulation” that enables Russia to later renew hostilities. ISOBEL KOSHIW, KYIV, MDT/AP