Russia launched a wave of attacks on Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least six people in overnight strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure, while a Ukrainian attack in southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes, authorities said.
The large-scale attacks come during a renewed U.S. push to end the war that has raged for nearly four years and talks about a U.S.-brokered peace plan. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — who became part of the U.S. negotiating team less than two weeks ago — met with Russian officials for several hours in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
“Late Monday and throughout Tuesday, Secretary Driscoll and team have been in discussions with the Russian delegation to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine. The talks are going well and we remain optimistic. Secretary Driscoll is closely synchronized with the White House … as these talks progress,” said U.S. Army Lt.-Col. Jeff Tolbert, a spokesperson for Driscoll.
The exact nature of the discussions was not immediately clear, and it was not known who was in the Russian delegation.
Russia fired 22 missiles of various types and over 460 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, noting that four drones flew into Romania and Moldova.
Romanian and German NATO fighter jets were scrambled near Romania’s border with Ukraine to respond to the drone incursion. Defence Minister Ionut Mosteanu said the NATO pilots came close to shooting down the drone, but had held off, over concern about causing damage on the ground.
It was the 13th time since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Romania reported a breach of its airspace.
Ukraine allies to meet virtually
The hostilities followed talks between U.S. and Ukraine representatives in Geneva about a U.S.-Russia brokered peace plan.
Oleksandr Bevz, a delegate from the Ukrainian side, told The Associated Press the talks had been “very constructive” and the two sides were able to discuss most points.
WATCH | Ukrainian civilians hope for the best in latest ceasefire push:
A U.S.-imposed deadline for a peace deal in Ukraine is days away, but despite ongoing talks, key issues remain far from resolved — including whether Ukraine will cede territory to Russia.
Confusion reigned over the weekend, reflecting how U.S. policy toward the war has zigzagged in recent months, though the White House has been consistent in maintaining that Europe must contribute more to its collective defence, and Donald Trump’s administration has not contributed new military or humanitarian aid to Ukraine from government coffers.
A 28-point plan that emerged last week caught many in U.S. Congress, Kyiv and Europe off-guard and prompted fresh concerns that the Trump administration might be willing to push Ukraine to sign a peace deal heavily tilted toward Moscow.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that a U.S.-brokered peace plan for Ukraine “goes in the right direction” but also cautioned it must not enable Russia to later renew hostilities.
The French head of state said any peace deal with Moscow must include robust security guarantees for Ukraine, and that the size of Ukraine’s armed forces shouldn’t be restricted.
Macron was speaking to broadcaster RTL before a video conference meeting of countries, led by France and the U.K., that could help police any ceasefire with Russia.
“We want peace but we don’t want a peace that is, in fact, a capitulation,” he said. “That is to say, it puts Ukraine in an impossible position, that in the end gives Russia the freedom to keep going, to go further,” Macron said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday morning that Moscow has not received the updated peace plan.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country had welcomed an initial version of a U.S. peace plan for Ukraine — which Kyiv and its allies deemed too favourable for Moscow — but was waiting for an amended “interim” version after Washington had finished co-ordinating with Ukraine and Europe.
If the amended version did not reflect what Putin and Trump had discussed when they met in Alaska in August, Lavrov said that Russia would take a very different view of the initiative.
That initial plan had permanently ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine, capped its army at 600,000, proposed handing the rest of Donbas to Russia — albeit as a demilitarized zone — and mandated that Kyiv hold elections within 100 days.
All those clauses are reported to have since been amended or put to one side for now.
‘Putin won’t stop’
Back in Ukraine, the Russian strikes knocked out water, electricity and heat in parts of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Video footage posted to Telegram showed a large fire spreading in a nine-storey residential building in Kyiv’s eastern Dniprovskyi district.
Liubov Petrivna, a 90-year-old resident in the Dniprovskyi district, told the AP “absolutely everything” in her apartment was shattered by the strike and “glass rained down” on her.
Petrivna said she didn’t believe in the peace plan now under discussion: “No one will ever do anything about it. Putin won’t stop until he finishes us off.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people were killed and five injured in Dniprovskyi district. In a subsequent attack wave, four people were killed and three were injured in a strike on a non-residential building in Kyiv’s western Sviatoshynyi district, according to the head of Kyiv city administration, Tymur Tkachenko.
Klitschko said about 20 others in Kyiv also suffered injuries from the attacks.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it targeted military-industrial facilities and energy assets.
Ukrainian drones hit Russian city
Russia also suffered losses in its southern Rostov region overnight, as three people were killed and eight more were wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack. The casualties occurred in the city of Taganrog, not far from the border in Ukraine, Gov. Yuri Slyusar said in an online statement Tuesday.
The attack damaged private houses and multi-storey residential blocks, unspecified social facilities, a warehouse and a paint shop, Slyusar said.
Russian air defences destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones overnight above various Russian regions and the occupied Crimea, the Russian Defence Ministry said Tuesday, noting that 116 of the drones were shot down over the Black Sea.
