Missiles Hit Kyiv Hours After Russia Agrees to Resume Three-Way Peace Talks

KYIV — Russian missiles struck Kyiv early Thursday, hours after Moscow said it was “ready in principle” to resume three-way peace talks with Ukraine and the United States — and after President Trump claimed the world was “maybe now the closest we've been” to ending the war.

Several houses were hit in Wednesday night's attack, injuring six people, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said. The strikes continued a pattern that has intensified over recent weeks as Russia has hammered civilian and energy infrastructure, aiming to cripple Ukraine's power grid before winter.

The diplomatic track, meanwhile, showed its first movement in months. Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are leading the push: Witkoff met President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Wednesday — after meeting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and the leaders of Norway and Finland in Oslo the day before. The St. Petersburg meeting lasted about three hours, according to Reuters.

Three-way talks were paused in February, after which Russia stepped up its attacks as Ukraine ran short of Western-supplied interceptors to defend its skies. Zelensky said after Tuesday's talks that “strong” security guarantees for Ukraine and proposals for an energy ceasefire had been discussed. Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov was cool on the ideas, saying they were not very “useful” — but he suggested a new round could be held around Nov. 10 in Abu Dhabi.

The diplomatic push has so far failed to end a war that Putin launched in 2022, with Moscow currently controlling about a fifth of Ukrainian territory. The juxtaposition of Thursday's missile attack with the revived talks underscores the distance between a ceasefire in principle and peace in practice.

Reporting by BBC News. Read the original report: Missiles hit Kyiv after Russia agrees to US call to resume Ukraine peace talks.