At least two people were killed and several were injured in Kyiv overnight after a wave of Russian ballistic missiles triggered powerful explosions and fires across the Ukrainian capital, city military authorities said on October 25.
A kindergarten in the Dniprovskiy district was damaged and large blazes broke out in nonresidential areas of the Desnianskiy and Darnytskiy districts.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia carried out a large overnight mixed strike across the country, launching nine Iskander-M ballistic missiles from the Rostov and Kursk regions and 62 attack drones from several directions, including Kursk and Oryol in Russia and Hvardiiske in occupied Crimea.
The military said that air defenses downed four missiles and 50 drones while confirming impacts across 11 locations as morning assessments continued.
Elsewhere, Russian outlets claim Ukrainian forces launched several HIMARS rockets at the Belgorod reservoir dam.
Authorities said the dam itself was not destroyed and there was no threat of flooding to nearby settlements.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment publicly on the specific strike, consistent with Kyiv’s general policy of operational ambiguity regarding cross-border attacks
The overnight escalation also intersected with a new diplomatic signal from Moscow.
Kirill Dmitriev, President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, said he believes the United States, Ukraine, and Russia are “quite close” to a diplomatic solution. He did not elaborate on why he believes a diplomatic solution is imminent. The public positions of Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on key issues, including territory and security guarantees.
Dmitriev is in the United States, and US media reports suggest he will meet with President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Miami on October 25.
Plans for a meeting in Budapest on Ukraine were put on hold this week after early signals of a Trump–Putin summit gave way to a reversal in Washington, with the White House saying there were no immediate plans to meet and Trump warning he didn’t want a “wasted meeting.”
The pause followed preparatory contacts in which Moscow rejected an immediate ceasefire that would freeze current front lines, prompting Washington to pivot toward new sanctions on major Russian oil firms and reinforcing European skepticism about a Budapest format without Kyiv’s terms at the center.
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Ukraine’s Western backers are ready to take to the next level their efforts to punish Moscow for continuing Europe’s deadliest war in decades and force Putin to the negotiating table.
Starmer made the statements following a meeting in London on October 24 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and members of the Coalition of the Willing, a grouping of more than 20 nations helping the embattled country.
“We’ve been clear today that we must respond. Working with the US, this coalition is determined to go further than ever, to ratchet up the pressure on Putin — from the battlefield to his war economy — because that is the only way to change his mind and push him back to the table,” Starmer told a press conference following the two-hour meeting.
