Russian strikes continue following visit by Witkoff and Kushner to Kyiv
Developed over time first seen 2 months ago
Russia carried out a fresh ballistic and cruise missile attack on Kyiv on Tuesday, shortly after a US-brokered three-day ceasefire expired and just hours after American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had visited the Ukrainian capital to try to revive stalled peace negotiations. The strikes damaged residential buildings in two districts of the city, trapping people inside one apartment block, and started fires including at an educational facility, undercutting claims of diplomatic progress and highlighting how fragile any pause in the fighting remains even as Washington pushes for a lasting settlement.
Kyiv's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, confirmed residents were trapped following the attacks, and people were told to remain indoors as emergency services responded. The strikes came after Witkoff and Kushner met Ukrainian officials in Kyiv on Sunday, a day after holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow; Witkoff said "substantive progress" had been made, including movement towards further trilateral talks. Russian officials separately reported a Ukrainian drone strike on civilian infrastructure in Saratov, while Ukraine said Russian attacks over the preceding days had killed and wounded dozens of people nationwide, and Ukrainian drones had hit three Russian oil refineries.
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In short
- Russia struck Kyiv with missiles as a US-brokered ceasefire ended.
- Attack followed Witkoff and Kushner's peace talks in Kyiv and Moscow.
- People trapped in a Kyiv apartment block; fires reported across the city.
How this story developed
- 1 month ago Russia launched a fresh missile attack on Kyiv on Tuesday, hours after US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had visited the Ukrainian capital to try to revive stalled peace talks, and as a three-day ceasefire brokered around their visit came to an end.
- 1 month ago Russia carried out a fresh ballistic and cruise missile attack on Kyiv on Tuesday, shortly after a US-brokered three-day ceasefire expired and just hours after American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had visited the Ukrainian capital to try to revive stalled peace negotiations.
- 1 month ago Russia struck Kyiv with ballistic and cruise missiles on Tuesday, just after a three-day ceasefire expired and only hours after US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had visited the Ukrainian capital in a bid to revive stalled peace negotiations.
- 2 months ago Russia launched a ballistic and cruise missile attack on Kyiv on Tuesday, hours after US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited the Ukrainian capital as part of efforts to revive stalled peace talks.
Full account
Russia launched a fresh wave of strikes on Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, just days after senior US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had travelled to the Ukrainian capital in an attempt to revive stalled peace negotiations. The assault brought to an end a brief, informal truce under which Moscow and Kyiv had reportedly agreed to refrain from striking each other's capitals for three days while the American delegation shuttled between the two countries. Ukrainian officials said the attack killed at least two people and left others injured, with residential buildings damaged and fires breaking out across the city.
The renewed bombardment followed a weekend of high-level diplomacy. Witkoff and Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, before travelling on to Kyiv on Sunday for lengthy, closed-door talks with Ukrainian officials that reportedly ran for several hours. Witkoff described the discussions as having produced "substantive progress", including movement towards arranging further three-way talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the United States, and said President Trump remained committed to ending the fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky struck a more sober tone, telling reporters that officials from Ukraine, Europe and the US would meet again soon, while also warning that he expected the conflict to drag on into the winter.
Ukrainian officials said the overnight strikes on Kyiv involved a mix of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones, prompting air raid alerts that sent residents into shelters, including at least one metro station, in scenes now familiar to the city after more than three and a half years of war. Homes were damaged in the Solomianskyi and Podilskyi districts, among others, with a five-storey apartment block among the buildings struck and vehicles set alight. Kyiv's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said residents had become trapped inside one damaged residential building, while fires were also reported at an educational facility elsewhere in the city.
The exchange of fire was not one-sided. Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone strike had hit civilian infrastructure in the city of Saratov on Tuesday morning, injuring several people, while Ukraine had earlier struck three Russian oil refineries. Russian attacks elsewhere in Ukraine over the preceding day were also reported to have killed and wounded dozens more. One British broadcaster noted analysis suggesting Kyiv is now enduring more frequent air raid alerts than at any point since the invasion began in February 2022, underlining how the diplomatic push has yet to translate into any let-up in hostilities on the ground.
Where outlets differ
From the full account, which is AI-written from the sources:
Casualty figures diverge: the US outlet describes people being trapped in a damaged building and fires including at an educational facility, without giving a firm death toll, while the British outlet cites a specific figure of at least two killed and ten injured, sourced to Kyiv's emergency service.
The US report frames the strikes primarily around the collapse of a specific 'three-day ceasefire' that Witkoff said had been agreed before the envoys' trip and which expired on Tuesday, whereas the British report frames it as both sides agreeing only to pause strikes on each other's capitals, and gives more weight to Zelensky's remarks that he expects the war to continue into winter.
The British outlet includes additional context from BBC Verify on record-high air raid alert frequency in Kyiv since 2022, a data point absent from the US report.
The US report gives more emphasis to Witkoff's upbeat characterisation of 'substantive progress' in the talks, while the British report emphasises that the Sunday talks concluded without major breakthroughs.
Centre outlets 1
Only here: least, people, dead
Right-leaning outlets 2
- Russian strikes continue following visit by Witkoff and Kushner to KyivFox News
- Russia resumes strikes on Kyiv after pause for US envoys' visitThe Hill
Only here: visit, continue, following, witkoff, kushner
Every side used: russian, strikes, kyiv
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Explained simply
Russia and Ukraine have been fighting a full-scale war since Russia's invasion in February 2022, and despite periodic diplomatic efforts, fighting has continued largely unabated. Recently, the United States has been pushing to broker a peace deal, with President Donald Trump's administration sending envoys to meet both sides in an effort to end the conflict.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and a senior adviser, have taken on prominent roles in these negotiations, shuttling between Moscow and Kyiv to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian officials. Their visits are part of a broader American push to arrange direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, though previous attempts at ceasefires and negotiated settlements have repeatedly broken down.
The story matters because it illustrates the difficulty of reconciling diplomacy with events on the battlefield: even as US-led talks are described as making progress, both Russia and Ukraine continue to strike each other's territory, raising questions about whether any negotiated pause can hold and what a lasting settlement might look like.
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