Russia pounds Kyiv shortly after departure of US envoys 

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - KYIV —Russia pounded Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with missiles and drones on Tuesday, shortly after the departure of US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who visited the region in an attempt to kickstart stalled peace talks.

Russia said it launched a massive overnight attack on Ukraine's military-industrial complex, targeting drone production sites, cruise missile storage facilities and military logistics centers in Kyiv and the surrounding region.

Three people were killed and 16 others were wounded in the attack, which involved ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones, according to the Ukrainian Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi.

The Kremlin launched “a massive strike using ground and air-based precision-guided weapons and attack drones,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Forces hit “facilities belonging to Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, logistics and warehousing centres,” the statement added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the assault was “complex” and designed by Russia to “cause as much harm to life as possible.”

The attack caused “significant damage to residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in the capital,” Zelensky said on X.

People were rescued after being trapped in a five-story residential block damaged in the onslaught in Kyiv’s Solomyanskyi district, emergency services said. A warehouse and garages in other districts were also damaged and images from officials showed cars on fire.

Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said an educational institution had been damaged. The attacks also struck a civilian market in Odesa region, an apartment building in Kharkiv region, Zelensky said.

Elsewhere in the city, Russia’s barrage damaged the newsroom and staff offices of a Ukrainian TV channel – “We Are Ukraine” – the media groups posted on Facebook, marking the second such strike over past two weeks.

Throughout the Ukrainian capital, explosions rang out for nearly five hours on Tuesday, said Vyhivskyi, as strikes set off blazes and damaged dozens of buildings including school grounds, shops and a flour mill.

A drone strike damaged a passenger train on the route between Kyiv and the eastern city of Sumy, though its 90 passengers and crew were able to evacuate beforehand, Ukraine’s emergency services said. While attacks on trains have become more frequent and passengers are often evacuated on their journeys, rail remains a popular way to travel between the cities.

Due to the scale of the Russian attack, military aircraft were put in the air by neighboring Poland to protect its airspace, Reuters reported, citing the country’s armed forces.

On Sunday, Witkoff and Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, met with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, one day after holding intensive meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as Washington renews its push to end the years-long war.

“Substantive progress was made, including movement on scheduling additional trilateral talks,” Witkoff said on X following the talks, though no major breakthroughs were announced.

The fact that Kushner and Witkoff visited both capitals is testament to Ukraine’s “stronger negotiating position,” Zelensky told reporters on Tuesday, adding that he’d “like them to visit more often.”

Reflecting on the talks, Zelensky said, “There really were a couple of ideas that were very good, quite worthwhile.”

“Whether we’ll be able to put them into practice, make them effective, or whether they’ll yield results – I don’t know yet,” he added.

Officials from Kyiv “are planning to meet with the Europeans and Americans in the near future,” according to Zelensky, who set his sights on a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, Russia and the US. “If all parties agree, we would also like to hold this in the autumn,” he said.

Also on Tuesday, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, insisted Russia “welcomes all efforts toward a peaceful resolution in Ukraine,” at a press briefing in New Delhi.

Russia and Ukraine had agreed to pause attacks on each other’s capitals for the duration of the weekend of diplomacy, which came after months without significant progress toward resolution. The 72-hour truce expired on Tuesday.

The reprieve came after weeks of intense Russian attacks on the Ukrainian capital, including a daytime strike on the headquarters of Ukraine’s Security Service on Friday –– the first time the building had been hit during the conflict.

That strike was seen as a major escalation, and a sign that Kyiv is increasingly unable to defend its key assets against Russian attacks as it struggles with critical shortages of interceptor missiles.

At the same time, the UK Defense Ministry announced a fresh air defense package worth $135 million (£100 million), including Patriot missiles and the “millionth round of large-calibre artillery ammunition,” in a statement on Tuesday.

Ukraine has also ramped up its own aerial attacks in recent months, striking targets deeper into Russian territory.

A Ukrainian drone attack hit civilian infrastructure in the Russian city of Saratov, wounding ten people, including three children, the city’s governor said in a post to Telegram Tuesday.