U.S. delegation arrives in Ukraine for peace talks after at least 25 killed in Russian strikes
An American delegation arrived in Ukraine on Wednesday to “discuss efforts to end the war” as American efforts to revive peace negotiations appeared to gain momentum.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was joined by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and other top Army officials, Col. Dave Butler said in a statement, hours after Ukrainian police said at least 25 people were killed in a heavy overnight Russian missile and drone attacks.
“Secretary Driscoll and team arrived this morning in Kyiv on behalf of the administration on a fact finding mission to meet with Ukrainian officials and discuss efforts to end the war,” he said.
American efforts to revive peace negotiations appear to be gaining momentum although the Kremlin has shown no sign of changing its terms for ending the war and it played down a media report that the United States was working on a 28-point peace plan.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing there were “no such plans” for Russia to meet Driscoll after his talks in Kyiv, indicating there had been little change since talks in Alaska in August.
Driscoll and his delegation arrived in the Ukrainian capital after an overnight Russian missile and drone attack on several Ukrainian cities.
After an apartment building was hit in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, the National Police of Ukraine said on Telegram that 25 people, including three children, were among the dead.
Another 66 people were wounded in the strikes that targeted energy and transport infrastructure, forcing emergency power cuts in a number of regions, officials said, adding that Russia launched more than 470 drones and 48 missiles in the attack.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that it “carried out a massive strike with long-range, high-precision air- and sea-launched weapons,” in response “to Ukraine’s terrorist attacks on civilian facilities.” It added that it had targeted “military-industrial facilities and energy infrastructure.”
The Kremlin has repeatedly said its only targets are linked to Kyiv’s war effort, but it has been pummeling Ukraine with near-daily drone and missile strikes which have killed and wounded civilians.
It has also targeted Ukraine’s energy sector in a bid to plunge the country into the cold and dark ahead of winter.
Energy infrastructure had been struck in seven Ukrainian regions, officials said Wednesday. Explosions were also reported in the western city of Lviv.
The full extent of the damage was not immediately clear but restrictions were placed on power usage for consumers across the country, according to Reuters.
In Ternopil on Wednesday, the upper floors of the residential building were torn away in the attack. Black smoke poured upwards, while an orange glow burned though the haze from a fire in the tower block.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed multi-storey residential buildings had been hit in the city, and said others may be trapped under the rubble.
He also urged allies to increase pressure on Russia to end its nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine, including by providing Kyiv with more air-defense missiles.
“Every brazen attack against ordinary life shows that the pressure on Russia is insufficient. Effective sanctions and assistance to Ukraine can change this,” he said on X.
Elsewhere, Poland scrambled Polish and allied aircraft, and temporarily closed airports in the southeastern cities of Rzeszow and Lublin as a precaution to safeguard the airspace over the NATO member state which borders western Ukraine.
