KYIV -– Ukraine on Oct 22 accused Russia of failing to change its position on the war, by firing a wave of ballistic missiles just after US envoy Steve Witkoff met President Vladimir Putin to discuss the resumption of peace talks.
Air raid sirens sounded throughout the night and into the day in Kyiv, where two people were killed and more than 30 other people wounded, the city authorities said.
Two women aged 50 and 60 were killed and dozens more people were wounded in an attack on a crowded market in the eastern city of Lozova. Two were wounded in the Moscow region after Ukraine launched its own large-scale drone attack.
The strikes came after the Kremlin said it was willing to restart trilateral talks with Kyiv and Washington in November, but dismissed new ideas brought by Witkoff that were developed with European countries and Ukraine.
In all, a dozen Ukrainian regions were hit overnight, including houses, energy sites, shops, cafes and a monastery damaged in Kyiv, where strikes have intensified before winter sets in.
All families and children were told to evacuate the front-line towns of Kramatorsk and neighbouring Sloviansk in the east after a spate of attacks killed dozens of civilians.
Zelensky said the onslaught began “almost immediately” after Witkoff and Putin held hours-long talks in St Petersburg, scoffing at US President Donald Trump’s envoy’s description of the Russian leader as a “humanitarian”.
“This means there has been no real change in its attitude towards everything that is happening,” he added.
Moscow emboldened by sanctions easing
Ukraine has repeatedly called on its allies, including the United States, to supply it with advanced US-made Patriot interceptors to shoot down missiles and fast-moving attack drones.
Zelensky warned of more strikes to come and suggested that Moscow – emboldened by an easing of sanctions pressure – was “clearly taking advantage of the slowdown in air-defence supplies from our partners”, in a clear nod to Washington.
In Brussels, NATO said it was allowing Ukraine to buy weapons through the alliance’s central procurement agency on a “case-by-case basis”.
Trump sought an optimistic tone as his envoy returned from Russia and on Oct 21 said negotiators were “maybe now the closest we’ve been” to ending the war.
But in Kyiv and European capitals, hopes for a breakthrough were slim, with many worried the White House was siding with Moscow.
A rescuer taking a break near a wall with shrapnel holes at the site of a shopping centre hit by a Russian missile attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct 22.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Zelensky accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians in Kyiv, including with cluster munitions, which disperse in the air, showering dozens of smaller explosive devices or bomblets indiscriminately over a large area.
Human Rights Watch in August reported an apparent increase in the use of the weapons, which are fired in rockets and missiles or dropped from aircraft. Doing so could be a war crime, it added.
Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what it hoped would be a swift attack to topple Zelensky and seize land.
Instead, it has become bogged down in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions forced from their homes and much of eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed.
Zelensky backs resuming trilateral talks
Zelensky met Witkoff in Norway on Oct 20 as relations between Kyiv and Washington plunged to their worst state since Trump publicly berated Zelensky in the Oval Office in February 2025.
In recent days, Trump has blocked new sanctions on Russia, struck a deal to buy Russian diesel, and called for the Ukrainian leader to be replaced.
Zelensky has backed resuming trilateral talks – several rounds of which over the last 18 months have failed to move the sides closer to a deal.
Russia is demanding Ukraine pull out of territory in the eastern Donetsk region that it still controls, and wants sweeping political and military restrictions on the size of its army and Western alliances.
Ukraine rejects the demands as tantamount to a capitulation that would leave it exposed to a fresh attack.
Moscow said that a summit between Trump, Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping was being prepared in China for November, with Europeans and Ukraine worrying a deal could be struck over their heads.
Witkoff called his talks with Putin “constructive” but said “there is still important work left to do” and technical-level talks would continue between all three sides.
Putin has consistently rejected face-to-face talks with Zelensky and insisted Moscow intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine – either through a deal or on the battlefield. AFP