World
Russian Drone Strikes Kyiv TV Station Live On Air, Five Dead In Wider Attacks
By Today News Hours Editorial Desk
A Russian drone struck the headquarters of Ukrainian broadcaster We Are Ukraine in Kyiv on Tuesday, injuring at least five people while journalists were on air, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. He described the daytime assault as a "new page in Russian degradation" and shared images showing part of the building had collapsed.
At least five people were killed across Kyiv in a combination of overnight and daytime Russian strikes. In a separate incident in southern Ukraine, an attack on a passenger train killed a female railway employee, according to officials.
The strikes came despite an earlier agreement between Russia and Ukraine to pause attacks on each other's capitals for three days while senior US envoys visited both Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend.
Zelensky said Russia had deliberately targeted media workers. "Today, Russia carried out a strike on the media, journalists," he said, renewing calls for Ukraine's allies in Europe, the United States and beyond to increase pressure on Moscow. "Russia must be stopped, and this is possible only through joint efforts," he added.
We Are Ukraine released footage it says captures the moment the drone hit its newsroom, saying the attack was deliberate rather than accidental. A BBC team visited the site afterward and confirmed damage to the newsroom, noting the strike had interrupted a live broadcast.
Earlier that day, air raid sirens had sounded across Kyiv as Russian forces launched missile and drone strikes, according to local authorities. Ukraine's state emergency service, DSNS, reported that overnight explosions killed three people and injured 25 others. A five-storey residential building in the Solomianskyi district was hit, and vehicles caught fire in the Podilskyi district. Residents took shelter in a metro station during the attack, a common practice since the start of the war.
By Tuesday afternoon, the overall death toll in Kyiv had risen to five. A BBC Verify analysis found that Kyiv is currently experiencing more daily air raid alerts than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022.
In Russia, the city of Saratov was also struck early Tuesday during a Ukrainian drone attack, according to regional governor Roman Busargin.
The strikes followed weekend talks in Moscow and Kyiv involving US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, which ended without major breakthroughs. On Tuesday evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump held what Moscow described as "constructive and very frank" phone talks lasting about an hour, according to Putin's senior adviser Yuriy Ushakov. The Trump administration has not issued a public comment, though Witkoff earlier said "substantive progress was made," without elaborating.
Ushakov said Saturday that Trump's envoys had been briefed in Moscow on what Russia called "significant advances" by its armed forces, adding that the Kremlin's objectives "would be achieved."
Zelensky, following his meeting with Witkoff and Kushner in Kyiv on Sunday—their first visit to Ukraine—said he expects the war to continue into winter. He said officials from Ukraine, Europe and the United States had agreed to hold further discussions soon, and he called for a trilateral meeting involving Russia and the US. Putin has shown no indication of softening his demands, which include further territorial concessions from Ukraine.