Missiles hit Kharkiv district, killing two and wounding four

Two people are dead and four more are wounded after Russian missiles slammed into Kharkiv's Novobavarsky district on Monday. Mayor Ihor Terekhov confirmed the toll in a Telegram post, saying apartment buildings, private houses and cars were damaged in the strike. The district sits in Ukraine's second-largest city, which has absorbed repeated attacks through the war.

Moscow's military also claimed over the weekend that its troops had wiped out five Ukrainian fire teams operating in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, according to Breaking The News. That claim has not been independently verified. Fighting along that northeastern front has stayed intense as both sides trade accounts of battlefield losses.

The strike came the same day President Volodymyr Zelensky signed decrees extending martial law and general mobilization for another 90 days. Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed both bills earlier Monday before sending them to his desk. The extensions kick in together on October 31, and the National Security and Defense Council had proposed them over Russia's ongoing large-scale armed aggression.

Zelensky also used Monday to press for speed on diplomacy, saying in a social media post that the sooner the conversation starts, the better, and repeating that Ukraine is ready to negotiate at any time. He stressed a meeting set for early November must not be pushed back, and said he had spoken with new Estonian President Ulle Madise, thanking her country for backing Kyiv. Like Estonia and other partners, he said, Ukraine keeps pushing for Europe to have a seat at the table.

Elsewhere, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of stepping up strikes on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, claiming staff are heroically carrying on under the hardest conditions. She said Moscow is making every effort to shield the plant, its workers and residents of nearby Enerhodar. The facility and its surroundings remain under Russian military control, and both sides have accused each other of shelling the site.

In Paris, French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin said France's support for Ukraine will not decline, speaking after an E5 summit with defense ministers from Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Poland. The ministers said at a press briefing they are ready to work together inside NATO to shore up Europe's security, stressing that the Euro-Atlantic area needs more investment in its own capabilities and resources.