Ukraine’s capital has come under a new missile attack, hours after Russia said it was “ready in principle” to resume peace talks and the US president said the world was “the closest we’ve been” to ending the war.
Several houses were hit on Wednesday night, injuring six people, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.
The attack came amid a new diplomatic push led by Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Witkoff met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in the city of St Petersburg on Wednesday – a day after meeting Ukraine’s leader.
Three-way talks were paused in February, after which Russia stepped up attacks as Ukraine ran out of Western-supplied interceptors to defend against missiles.
Speaking on Wednesday, Trump said: “The other day I was talking to Vladimir Putin about settling his war with Ukraine, which I think we’re getting closer to, by the way, maybe now the closest we’ve been.”
The US president has so far failed to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end despite his repeated comments that he would be able to achieve this.
Trump’s special envoy Witkoff went to St Petersburg after meeting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as the leaders of Norway and Finland in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, on Tuesday.
It is not clear what specific proposals Witkoff brought to Putin, but Zelensky said after the talks that “strong” security guarantees for Ukraine and energy ceasefire proposals had been discussed.
Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said their ideas were not very “useful”.
Top officials from Russia, Ukraine and the US have held several rounds of talks aimed at ending the war.
Russia blamed last month’s “massive” Ukrainian strikes during its general elections for their disruption.
Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.
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