Russian strikes kill four in Ukraine ahead of US envoy visit
Russian attacks kill four in Ukraine as US envoys prepare to visit for peace talks; Kyiv pledges no strikes during visit.
Overnight Russian attacks killed four people and wounded several others in Ukraine, as both Moscow and Kyiv prepared for the arrival of senior US envoys seeking to revive peace negotiations in the nearly four-and-a-half-year-old war.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the US president's son-in-law, are expected in the region for talks aimed at de-escalating a conflict that has seen intensifying aerial exchanges along the 1,250-kilometre front line. Russia has increasingly deployed fast, jet-powered drones, and air-raid sirens have become routine in the capital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Friday that Kyiv would suspend its own air attacks during the American visit, urging Moscow to reciprocate. "There will be no airstrikes from our side, and Russia must do the same," he said in a social media post, adding that Ukrainian forces would ensure safe passage for the negotiators.
Despite that appeal, Russian strikes overnight hit an industrial facility in the Dnipropetrovsk region, killing four and wounding five, according to local military administration head Oleksandr Hanzha. A separate attack on the Nikopol district wounded a 62-year-old man and damaged homes and an apartment building. Russia's defence ministry said it had targeted two metallurgical plants it described as suppliers for Ukraine's military production.
In the Kyiv region, an overnight attack wounded two people and a drone strike sparked a fire that partially destroyed a nine-storey residential building in the Boryspil district. In the southern Mykolaiv region, drones repeatedly struck a shopping centre, damaging retail premises and injuring a 72-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. Emergency crews were forced to pause rescue efforts due to the threat of further strikes.
Ukraine's Air Force reported that Russia launched ballistic missiles from the Rostov and Voronezh regions and deployed 167 attack drones, including Shahed-type and decoy aircraft. Ukrainian defences shot down or suppressed 128 of them. Meanwhile, Ukrainian attacks wounded three people, including a 14-year-old girl, in Russia's Belgorod border region, where Moscow said its forces intercepted 53 drones.