Russia and Ukraine Trade Deep Strikes as Talks Remain Unsettled

Russian forces struck energy and other targets across southern Ukraine overnight, while Ukrainian drones hit oil-refining and petrochemical facilities deep inside Russian territory, according to statements from both sides.

Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces hit power substations in Odesa and Mykolaiv that serve port infrastructure in the two regions. A logistics center in the Odesa region was also struck, along with railway infrastructure in western Ukraine that Moscow says is used to move military cargo from European countries.

Serhiy Lysak, who heads the Odesa military administration, said a multi-storey apartment building, private homes, two educational institutions and infrastructure facilities were damaged in the overnight attacks. Authorities were still assessing the consequences.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of carrying out "systematic attacks against civilians, trains and the infrastructure that keeps the country moving." On Saturday, Ukrainian tennis player Dayana Yastremska said on Instagram that her family's apartment in an Odesa high-rise had been destroyed by a Russian Kalibr cruise missile.

Russia's Defense Ministry also reported movement on the ground, saying its forces were expanding an "outer control zone" in the Kharkiv region in northern Ukraine.

In Russia, industrial and civilian facilities were damaged in a Ukrainian drone attack on Nizhnekamsk in Tatarstan, a major oil-refining and petrochemical hub about 900 kilometers east of Moscow, regional authorities said. A fire broke out at one facility and was being extinguished, while production continued, they said. Two people were killed and 12 injured. A blaze was also reported at a facility in Slavyansk-on-Kuban in the Krasnodar region following a Ukrainian drone attack; officials did not identify the site.

Russia said its air defenses intercepted 389 Ukrainian drones across multiple regions. Ukraine's General Staff said preliminary data showed its forces shot down 405 of 453 Russian drones overnight.

Meanwhile, debate continues over when and where new talks on ending the war might be held, well into its fifth year, after US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Moscow and Kyiv last weekend for top-level meetings.

In an interview with Germany's DW published on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would travel to Miami for President Donald Trump's G20 leaders' summit in mid-December if Vladimir Putin also attended, arguing the two leaders should meet and make decisions. Zelenskyy said in Canada last week that new meetings could be held with US envoys in New York late this month, potentially when world leaders gather for the UN General Assembly's general debate.

Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's presidential office, later said a new round of trilateral talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the US may come in October. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, accompanying Putin at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, told Russia's Izvestia newspaper that a number of issues must be resolved before any trilateral meeting can take place, adding that the "territorial issue" remains key to progress.

Putin insists Ukraine must surrender the remainder of its eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal to end the war. Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the demand to hand over the region, which Russian forces have failed to capture in fighting dating back to 2014.