KYIV: Russia pounded Kyiv with ballistic missiles and Ukraine sent hundreds of drones towards Moscow overnight as the warring sides kept up a barrage of attacks despite the latest US push to end the conflict.
Russia said on Wednesday it was ready to resume US-mediated talks with Ukraine next month, after President Vladimir Putin hosted US envoy Steve Witkoff for talks in St Petersburg. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped negotiations, which would be the first since February, would take place early in November.
Ukraine said Russia fired at least 21 ballistic missiles in three waves, and Zelensky said three of them carried cluster munitions — "bomblets" that disperse over a wide area and are banned by many countries because of the danger they pose to civilians. Russia's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Russia said Ukraine launched 630 drones towards Moscow during the night.
Zelensky said two people were killed and 34 injured, including five children, in attacks on a dozen Ukrainian regions. "Unfortunately, numerous sites across the city have been hit and damaged," he posted on X.
The two sides held an exchange of war dead, with Moscow handing over 252 bodies and Ukraine handing over 25, according to the Belta state news agency in neighbouring Belarus. Such exchanges have accompanied moves towards talks in the past.
But while Witkoff spoke of "some degree of momentum" after meeting Zelensky and European and Nato officials in Oslo earlier in the week, the Kremlin expressed doubts. "The Americans sensed some new nuances (in Oslo) and told us about this. But these nuances, so to speak, do not entirely satisfy us," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
A senior Russian official, briefed on the results of the Putin-Witkoff talks, said they were relatively short and not substantive. The American brought a set of proposals drafted in Oslo and handed them to Putin for review, the person said.
Russia said it carried out a "massive strike" overnight on port infrastructure in Ukraine's Odesa region, as well as on vessels used by the Ukrainian military.
In Russia, two people were wounded near Moscow by drones launched towards the capital during the night, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram. Most of the drones were downed at long range, he added. In the Russian border region of Belgorod, one man was killed and another wounded by Ukrainian drones, local officials said.
With the frontlines of the war largely static, both sides have escalated long-range air strikes this year. Russia has particularly targeted the Ukrainian power grid, while Ukraine has aimed at Russian oil refineries. Both have struck data centres, commercial warehouses and Black Sea shipping.
The war has ground on for more than four-and-a-half years. No breakthrough emerged from three short meetings in Istanbul last year and three rounds of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi and Geneva at the start of this year. — Reuters
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