Russia Fires 21 Ballistic Missiles at Kyiv Hours After Agreeing to Talks, and Moscow Says It Downed 808 Drones

Kyiv spent Thursday night under ballistic missiles, and Moscow spent it under drones. Ukraine said Russia launched 21 ballistic missiles at the capital in three waves, while Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences downed 808 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to the Associated Press.

The attacks came only hours after Vladimir Putin told US envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg that he agrees in principle to resume three-way talks with Ukraine and the United States, a meeting we described in our earlier report. No date has been set.

What happened in Kyiv?

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the missiles damaged apartment blocks, energy facilities, a railway station, the metro, shopping centres and businesses, and that three carried cluster munitions, per the AP. He said Russia has launched 170 strikes on Ukraine's critical energy facilities since 11 October. Across a dozen regions, Reuters, carried by NBC News, counted two killed and 34 injured, including five children, while the AP reported at least four dead. Casualty counts in the first hours of such attacks often change.

What did Russia say about the drones?

Moscow's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said 630 drones were fired towards the capital between late Wednesday and early Thursday, and Moscow airports temporarily restricted flights. Russia reported two people wounded near Moscow. These are Russian claims, and the NBC report said they were not independently confirmed. Russia's ministry said it hit drone and missile facilities in Kyiv and port infrastructure around Odesa.

Where do the talks stand?

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the new ideas Washington brought from Oslo "do not entirely satisfy us," Reuters reported, and Moscow's stated conditions still include more Ukrainian territory, limits on its forces and a permanent bar on NATO membership. Zelensky wants talks by early November, the first since February, and criticised Witkoff for calling Putin a "humanitarian" after Russia freed an elderly American. Ukraine's foreign minister said appeasement will not stop the war. Zelensky also asked Washington for more Patriot interceptors and sanctions.

Outside the capital the toll was local and personal. In the Kharkiv region, two women aged 50 and 60 were killed in a strike on a market in Lozova, the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said, according to the AP. Zelensky also said Kyiv has been left without American early-warning data on missile launches, a claim the United States denies. Separately, Russia and Ukraine exchanged war dead, with Ukraine receiving 252 bodies and Russia 25, Belarusian and Russian reports cited by the AP and Reuters said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin has been invited to a G20 summit in Miami in December but has not decided whether to attend.

The next test is whether a date for the three-way round is announced. Until then both sides are escalating long-range strikes, on power grids in Ukraine and on Russian oil facilities, while diplomacy moves slowly.