Missiles hit Kyiv hours after Russia says it is ready to resume peace talks
Six people were hurt in a night attack on Ukraine's capital, as US envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump spoke of being closer than ever to a deal.
Russian missiles struck Kyiv on Wednesday night, damaging several houses and injuring six people, according to the city's mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko. The attack came only hours after Moscow said it was "ready in principle" to return to peace talks with Ukraine and the United States.
The diplomatic push is being led by Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Witkoff met President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Wednesday, a day after holding talks in Oslo with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and the leaders of Norway and Finland. Zelensky said strong security guarantees for Ukraine and proposals for a ceasefire on energy infrastructure had been discussed; Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov dismissed the ideas as not very "useful".
Trump said on Wednesday that the sides were "maybe now the closest we've been" to ending the war, although his repeated promises to stop the fighting have so far not been met. Three-way talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US were paused in February. Since then Russia has stepped up its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities as Kyiv has run short of Western-supplied interceptors.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022 and currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine's territory.