Ukraine, Russia trade strikes after Witkoff talks

Russia and Ukraine trade strikes after US envoy's talks with Putin

The full report

Russia and Ukraine have traded major attacks on each other's capitals, with Russia launching a massive 'demonstrative' attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff.

The attack, which killed at least two people and wounded 22, including four children, targeted the southern bridge over the Dnipro River, civilian houses, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station, office buildings, and a monastery.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that numerous sites across the city had been hit and damaged, and that 12 regions across the country were bombed, including the southern city of Odesa, where the port was badly hit.

Zelenskyy said the latest devastating strikes showed that Russia was not serious about peace, and that 'appeasement, servility, and flattery' would not stop Russian aggression.

The US has resumed intelligence warnings of Russian missile attacks, but the White House has so far not reversed the slowdown of Starshield, the military version of Elon Musk's Starlink internet satellite system, leaving Ukraine unable to intercept enemy drones or carry out mid-range battlefield strikes.

The decision to cripple Ukraine's successful drone programme came amid the most serious row between Washington and Kyiv since Russia's full-scale invasion nearly five years ago, with European diplomats conceding that the US appears to have switched sides.