Russia Strikes Kyiv with Missiles and Drones as Both Sides Agree to Resume Peace Talks

US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff shuttled between Oslo, Norway, and St. Petersburg, Russia, this week, meeting separately with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure fresh commitments to resume US-brokered peace negotiations. A Kremlin spokesman said the next round of talks — the fourth facilitated by the Trump administration, following the most recent round in Geneva in February — is likely to take place in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, around mid-November.

The diplomatic push also produced a more immediate breakthrough: Kyiv and Moscow agreed to a local ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into a stranded town in Ukraine's Kherson region, following secret consultations between First Lady Melania Trump and civilian negotiators from both sides.

Despite the diplomatic signals, Russia launched a deadly barrage of ballistic missiles and drones on Kyiv within hours of Putin saying he agreed "in principle" to restart talks. Moscow also claimed on the same day that it had destroyed more than 800 Ukrainian drones heading toward its cities.

Deep divisions persist. Russia demands full control of four Ukrainian regions it illegally annexed after the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022 — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — plus Crimea, which it seized in 2014. Russia currently occupies about 20% of Ukraine but does not fully control those annexed regions. Ukraine insists any deal must include ironclad security guarantees against a future invasion, with Zelenskyy pointing to NATO membership as the preferred option — something Putin has flatly rejected.