Russian missiles pound Kyiv overnight as Moscow signals talks readiness

Missiles hit Kyiv throughout the night, authorities said early on Thursday, October 22, 2026, driving residents into shelters and wounding six people. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four of the wounded needed hospital treatment, while Ukraine's air force warned in the early hours of further ballistic missiles heading toward the capital and told people to remain in shelters. Russian authorities said they intercepted drones overnight, including more than 160 flying toward Moscow.

The strikes landed soon after Moscow indicated it was willing to restart negotiations. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters Russia was in principle ready to resume trilateral talks in mid-November, after the U.S. midterm elections, and wanted them to focus on post-war security. He added that the Ukrainian and European proposals delivered by the U.S. envoy contained little substance.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met Putin in Saint Petersburg for about three hours on Wednesday, his ninth such meeting, with Jared Kushner taking part remotely. Witkoff described the discussions as constructive but said important work remained, and that talks would continue at the technical level between Washington, Kyiv and Moscow. President Donald Trump said afterward it was the closest the sides have been to ending the war.

Witkoff praised Putin as a humanitarian for releasing U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard, a retired English teacher in his 70s who had always denied charges of fighting for Ukraine as a mercenary. Ushakov also said a summit between Putin, Trump and China's Xi Jinping was being prepared in Shenzhen for next month, calling it the first such meeting in history. Witkoff had flown to Russia from Oslo, where he met Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a day earlier after a period of friction between Washington and Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said Kyiv also backs resuming the trilateral format and that the American side wants it organised as soon as possible. Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, has consistently refused face-to-face talks with Zelenskyy and insists Moscow intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine. Trump returned to office in January 2025 promising to end the war within 24 hours, but more than a year of U.S.-led diplomacy has produced no breakthrough, with tens of thousands killed.

On the ground, Kyiv said Russian attacks killed at least four people on Wednesday, including two in the capital and an elderly couple in the eastern Kharkiv region, while Russian occupation authorities in the Lugansk region said a Ukrainian drone strike on a phone company killed two. Trump has delayed sanctions on Russia's war machine, defending the decision as necessary to secure Hubbard's release. He also pointed to a deal for Russia to sell diesel and lower fuel prices, which Ushakov said Washington was grateful for and which drew outrage in Kyiv and across Europe.