Russian attacks kill 7 in Ukraine as US peace-plan talks continue

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 U.S. push to end the war that has raged for near­ly four years, and talks about a U.S. peace plan. U.S. Army Sec­re­tary Dan Driscoll met with Russ­ian of­fi­cials for sev­er­al hours in Abu Dhabi, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, on Tues­day, a U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. and Ukraine in Gene­va, said that the num­bers of points in the pro­posed set­tle­ment was re­duced, but he de­nied re­ports that the 28-point U.S. 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 U.S. were ex­clud­ed.

Long road to peace

Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy 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 U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

Rustem Umerov, a se­nior ad­vis­er to Ze­len­skyy, post­ed on X on Tues­day that Ze­len­skyy hoped to fi­nalise 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 U.S. 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, Ze­len­skyy 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.

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

En­er­gy sites struck

Ukraine’s en­er­gy min­istry said that en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture had been hit, with­out giv­ing de­tails. Ukraine’s emer­gency ser­vices said that six peo­ple, in­clud­ing two chil­dren, were wound­ed in a Russ­ian at­tack on en­er­gy and port in­fra­struc­ture in the Ode­sa re­gion.

A Ukrain­ian drone at­tack on Rus­sia’s south­ern Ros­tov re­gion overnight killed three peo­ple and wound­ed eight oth­ers in the city of Tagan­rog not far from the bor­der in Ukraine, Gov. Yuri Slyusar said in an on­line state­ment.

The overnight Ukrain­ian drone at­tack on Rus­sia’s south­ern re­gion of Krasnodar was “one of the longest and most mas­sive” and wound­ed six peo­ple, Gov. Ve­ni­amin Kon­dratyev said.

Russ­ian air de­fences de­stroyed 249 Ukrain­ian drones overnight above var­i­ous Russ­ian re­gions and the oc­cu­pied Crimean Penin­su­la, the Russ­ian De­fence Min­istry said Tues­day.

Ukraine said that its drones and mis­siles struck an avi­a­tion re­pair plant and a drone pro­duc­tion fa­cil­i­ty, as well as an oil re­fin­ery and an oil ter­mi­nal.

It was the fourth-largest Ukrain­ian drone at­tack on Rus­sia since the start of the war on Feb. 24, 2022, ac­cord­ing to an AP tal­ly.

Plan mustn’t be ‘ca­pit­u­la­tion’

Olek­san­dr Bevz, a del­e­gate from the Ukrain­ian side, told the AP that the Gene­va talks had been “very con­struc­tive.”

Krem­lin spokesper­son Dmit­ry Peskov said Tues­day that Moscow hasn’t re­ceived the up­dat­ed U.S. peace plan that emerged from that meet­ing.

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron said that the Amer­i­can plan for Ukraine “goes in the right di­rec­tion,” but al­so cau­tioned it mustn’t be “a ca­pit­u­la­tion” that en­ables Rus­sia to lat­er re­new hos­til­i­ties.

Any peace deal must in­clude ro­bust se­cu­ri­ty guar­an­tees for Ukraine and, more wide­ly, for Eu­rope, Macron said in an in­ter­view with broad­cast­er RTL.

Macron was speak­ing be­fore a video con­fer­ence meet­ing on Tues­day of coun­tries, led by France and the U.K., that could help po­lice any cease­fire with Rus­sia.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) —