Russia Strikes Kyiv After Witkoff Meets Putin, One Dead

Only hours after US envoy Steve Witkoff talked with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg about restarting negotiations, Russia hit Kyiv with ballistic missiles and strike drones in the night between October 21 and 22. For Serbia, a European Union candidate that has not imposed sanctions on Moscow, the sequence matters because it shows how far the diplomatic channel between Washington and the Kremlin is from what is happening on the ground at the same time, and the outcome of that channel will shape any future sanctions regime on Russia.

What happened in Kyiv overnight on October 22?

Fires and damage were recorded in six city districts. According to the Telegram channel Monitor, at least 25 Iskander, Oniks and Tsirkon missiles were launched toward Kyiv and its surroundings over the evening and night. The Kyiv City Military Administration said on Telegram:

“Unfortunately, one person has been killed; we express our sincere condolences to their family and loved ones.”

The figures on the injured changed through the morning. Mayor Vitali Klitschko first reported 15 injured, among them two 15-year-olds. The State Emergency Service then said one man had died and 22 people were injured, including four children. In its latest report, the city military administration lists one dead and 24 injured, 16 of whom were taken to hospital. The city prosecutor’s office separately says the injured include five teenagers and two children, and that a 16-year-old boy is in hospital with a closed brain injury.

By district, the picture is as follows:

• Dniprovskyi: one person killed, a child hospitalized, five more injured
• Pecherskyi: eight injured, three of them children; an emergency services building, six ambulances and a monastery were damaged, and medics were not hurt
• Holosiivskyi: six injured in a hit non-residential building
• Obolonskyi: two injured
• Sviatoshynskyi: a restaurant complex of 1,100 square meters burned down

Transport infrastructure was also damaged in the Darnytskyi district, with no injuries.

The metro and the Pivdennyi Bridge

Klitschko confirmed that part of the metro infrastructure on the Pivdennyi (Southern) Bridge over the Dnipro was hit. The Green Line is therefore running only on the sections from Syrets to Vydubychi and from Osokorky to Chervonyi Khutir, and gaps between trains may be longer than usual. In the morning the city military administration also warned of traffic restrictions for vehicles crossing from the right bank of the Dnipro to the left.

The response from the other side and the background to the meeting

Ukraine launched 630 drones at the Moscow region the same night, 163 of them toward the capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. In his words, most were intercepted and two people were wounded. The governor of the Tula region reported 70 drones shot down.

The attack followed the meeting at the Konstantinovsky Palace on October 21, which we wrote about: Witkoff spoke with Putin, and Russia released American teacher Stephen Hubbard. The Kremlin said Moscow is in principle ready to resume talks with Ukraine with US mediation, but also that Ukrainian and European peace proposals have little substance. US President Donald Trump, according to Al Jazeera’s report, said he believes the war may be closer to its end than ever before.

The reaction from Kyiv came immediately. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X:

“Appeasement, servility and flattery will not stop this war. Only strength will.”

In recent days Trump postponed a new wave of sanctions on Russia, which he justified on Wednesday by the need to secure Hubbard’s release, and he also announced a deal under which Russia would sell diesel and so bring down fuel prices pushed up by the US and Israeli war against Iran. Witkoff told Putin that Washington is “grateful” for that deal, which caused outrage in Kyiv and across Europe.