Russia’s strikes kill 7 as Ukraine peace talks push on

KYIV 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 US push to end the war that has raged for nearly four years, and talks about a US peace plan. US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with Russian officials for several hours in Abu Dhabi, on Tuesday, a US official told The Associated Press.

Driscoll, who became part of the American 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 US 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.

Oleksandr Bevz, one of the Ukrainian delegates at Sunday’s talks between the US and Ukraine in Geneva, said that the numbers of points in the proposed settlement was reduced, but he denied reports that the 28-point US peace plan now consisted of 19 points.

“[The document] is going to continue to change. We can confirm that it was reduced to take out points not relating to Ukraine, to exclude duplicates and for editing purposes,” Bevz told The Associated Press, adding that some points relating solely to relations between Russia and the US were excluded.

Long road to peace

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Monday that “the list of necessary steps to end the war can become workable,” after progress was made in Sunday’s talks. He said that he planned to discuss “sensitive” outstanding issues with US President Donald Trump.

Rustem Umerov, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, posted on X on Tuesday that Zelensky 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 US 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 more than 460 drones at Ukraine overnight, Zelensky wrote on Telegram. The strikes knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Kyiv. Images showed a large fire spreading in a nine-story residential building in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.

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

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 that she didn’t believe in the peace plan now under discussion.

“No one will ever do anything about it,” she said. Russian President Vladimir Putin “won’t stop until he finishes us off.”

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

Neighboring countries Romania and Moldova reported that a handful of drones violated their airspace, with one each landing on their territory.