Civilians in Kyiv lost their lives after Russian drone strikes early on Tuesday, officials said, with emergency services reporting at least two dead and ten wounded. Air raid alerts sounded across the city as a series of explosions struck residential areas, including a five-storey apartment block in the Solomianskyi district, and set vehicles on fire in Podilskyi.
The city’s state emergency service conveyed the casualty toll and damage on Telegram. Images showed residents taking shelter in a metro station during the overnight assault, a measure that has become routine for Kyiv families during the conflict.
The attack came after both sides had agreed a temporary halt to strikes on each other’s capitals for three days while Donald Trump’s top envoys visited Moscow and Kyiv. The envoy visits produced hours of closed-door talks without any major breakthroughs, Ukrainian officials said, and President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned he expects the war to continue into the winter.
Kyiv’s increased tempo of alerts is striking; the city is experiencing more daily air raid warnings than at any time since the 2022 full-scale invasion. That pattern underscores the sustained threat to civilians and infrastructure even when short pauses in targeting are announced.
Elsewhere, Russian authorities reported buildings struck in the city of Saratov during a Ukrainian drone attack, with the regional governor Roman Busargin posting about the incident on Telegram early on Tuesday.
Ukrainian and western officials said follow-up meetings are planned, with Zelensky reporting an agreement for officials from Ukraine, Europe and the United States to meet soon and reiterating his call for a trilateral meeting with Russia and the US. For now, the overnight strikes make clear that temporary pauses have not removed the immediate danger to cities or curtailed the deep strategic differences the talks have so far failed to resolve.
