(AFP) – Russia and Ukraine traded major attacks overnight, with Moscow’s mayor saying on Thursday that 630 drones had been launched towards the region. This occurred shortly after a US envoy held talks with the Russian president in Saint Petersburg. “It was the closest we’ve been” to ending the war, US President Donald Trump stated after his envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The Kremlin indicated it was “in principle” open to the resumption of trilateral talks between the two sides and the United States.
However, attacks did not let up in the wake of the visit. Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on social media that strikes had wounded 15 people in the Ukrainian capital, eight of whom needed hospitalization. He mentioned in a separate post that strikes had damaged metro infrastructure at the Pivdenny Bridge, which officials said had restricted traffic between parts of the city. Ukraine’s Airforce issued a warning in the early hours about “more ballistic missiles towards Kyiv” and instructed residents to stay in shelters.
Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that two people had been wounded during mostly-intercepted barrages of 630 drones headed towards the region, 163 of which were approaching the capital city. Witkoff had flown to Russia from a meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo on Tuesday, which was aimed at smoothing over a bitter rift between Trump and the Ukrainian leader. Witkoff praised Putin as a “humanitarian” for freeing US citizen Stephen Hubbard, but the Kremlin warned after the meeting that while Moscow was “in principle” willing to restart talks, there was little “substance” in Ukrainian and European peace proposals the US diplomat had delivered.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also participated in the talks with Putin remotely. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Russia was “in principle, ready to resume” trilateral talks in mid-November, after the US midterm elections, and that the Kremlin wanted to focus on post-war security. Ushakov noted that Witkoff had briefed Putin on “some new aspects in the approaches of the Europeans and Kyiv” from the Oslo meeting, although he added that “there wasn’t really much substance in them”. A summit between Putin, Trump, and China’s Xi Jinping was also being prepared in China’s Shenzhen for next month, which Ushakov described as “the first such meeting in history.”
During their three-hour meeting, Witkoff praised Putin for granting Trump’s request to free Hubbard, a retired English teacher in his 70s who had always denied the charges of being a “mercenary” fighting for Ukraine. “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian — you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” Witkoff said. He described the talks with Putin as “constructive” but emphasized that “there is still important work left to do”. Discussions would continue between the US, Ukraine, and Russia at the technical level, he added.
Trump returned to power in January 2025, promising to end the war in 24 hours, but more than a year of US-led talks have failed to produce a breakthrough, resulting in tens of thousands of casualties. In recent days, a frustrated Trump has pivoted away from Ukraine and back to Putin, claiming a deal for Russia to sell diesel and reduce prices that had skyrocketed due to his Iran war. Trump also delayed the imposition of sanctions on Russia’s war machine, a decision he defended on Wednesday as necessary to secure Hubbard’s release. “If you would’ve put those sanctions on… you could forget about him. You’d never see him again,” Trump told reporters at the White House. The US envoy conveyed to Putin that Washington was “grateful” for the diesel deal, which sparked outrage in Kyiv and across Europe.
In Ukraine, Zelensky stated that Kyiv also supported resuming trilateral talks. “The American side is proposing to organize this meeting as soon as possible. We are in favour of it,” he told journalists. Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has consistently rejected face-to-face talks with Zelensky and insists that Moscow intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine. Witkoff’s ninth meeting with Putin coincided with continued Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities ahead of winter. Kyiv reported that Russian attacks killed at least four people on Wednesday, including two in the capital and an elderly couple in the eastern Kharkiv region. Additionally, Russian occupation authorities in the Lugansk region claimed that a Ukrainian drone strike on a phone company had killed two people.
burs-dk/ceg/tc
© 2024 AFP
