Russian Strikes on Kyiv Underscore Kremlin's Unchanged Stance

Russia launched ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions overnight, killing at least two people and wounding 34, shortly after US envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attacks prove the Kremlin's position on the war has not changed. Russia hit a dozen Ukrainian regions, damaging residential houses, energy sites, a shopping mall, and a monastery in Kyiv, where strikes have intensified ahead of winter. Russia also said it downed 808 Ukrainian drones fired overnight, with two people wounded in Moscow. The Kremlin dismissed Witkoff's new ideas as lacking substance but agreed to resume trilateral talks with Kyiv and Washington next month. President Donald Trump claimed negotiators were "maybe now the closest we've been" to ending the war, but Kyiv and European capitals saw slim hopes for a breakthrough. Russia demands Ukrainian withdrawal from Donetsk and sweeping military restrictions, which Ukraine rejects as capitulation. A Trump-Putin-Xi summit is reportedly being prepared in China.