Russia Fires 21 Missiles at Kyiv Hours After Agreeing Talks
Three waves of ballistic missiles struck Kyiv from Wednesday evening, 21 in all, hours after the Kremlin said President Putin had agreed in principle to resume three-way talks. President Zelensky said at least two people were killed and 34 injured, five of them children. Twelve regions were attacked overnight.
What Russia agreed to is narrower than it sounds. A Kremlin foreign-policy aide said after Wednesday’s St Petersburg meeting that talks could resume only after 10 November — a week after the American midterms — possibly in Abu Dhabi, and at technical level only. The same aide dismissed the proposals the American envoy had brought from Oslo: “there wasn’t much there that was useful”. Mr Putin has not agreed to meet Mr Zelensky at all. Then came the missiles. Residential blocks, energy sites, a railway station, the metro, shopping centres and a monastery were hit; metro infrastructure was damaged near the Pivdenny bridge over the Dnipro. In Kharkiv region a woman was killed and four injured. The toll is still rising: Ukraine’s emergency service had earlier put it at one dead and 22 injured. Mr Zelensky’s own framing was mordant — the missiles came from Russian “humanitarians” — and his foreign minister was blunter: “Appeasement, servility, and flattery will not stop this war. Only strength will.” Moscow’s mayor separately claimed Ukraine sent 630 drones at the Moscow region, a Russian figure that nobody independent has confirmed.