Russian Overnight Strikes Kill 6 in Ukraine

Overnight Russian missile and drone attacks killed six people, including two children, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Oct. 22.

He said Ukraine’s air defense forces, mobile fire groups, and drone interceptor crews were working through the night and into the morning to mitigate the bombardment, noting that the strikes primarily hit energy infrastructure but that many residential buildings were also hit.

“The Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy, and Sumy regions were under attack,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.

“As of now, 17 people are known to have been injured. Unfortunately, 6 people were killed, among them 2 children.

“Russian words about diplomacy mean nothing as long as the Russian leadership does not feel critical problems.”

He said that this “can be ensured only through sanctions, long-range capabilities, and coordinated diplomacy among all our partners” and called on the European Union to adopt a “strong sanctions package.”

The Ukrainian leader earlier reiterated his request for the United States to supply Kyiv with Tomahawk missiles, saying that as soon as the issue of long-range capabilities for Ukraine became less immediate, Russia’s interest in diplomacy “faded.”

The Tomahawk is an intermediate-range, subsonic cruise missile used to strike key enemy positions from a great distance. It is most often used to strike at hardened defense points, such as air defense systems, to pave the way for larger military actions.

Zelenskyy is heading to Sweden today to discuss further cooperation between the two nations with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

“Ukraine long ago agreed to the U.S. proposal for a ceasefire, while Moscow is doing everything to keep the killing going,” Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram after the most recent attacks.

“This means collective actions against Putin are currently insufficient, and we must all do more together to make him stop killing our people.”

Russia stated that its air defenses intercepted and destroyed 33 Ukrainian drones across several regions overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Telegram.

Commercial facilities in Makhachkala and a factory in the Mordovian Region were damaged in the attack, TASS reports.

Trump–Putin Summit Confusion

The violence comes as confusion abounds over whether and when a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin would take place.

Oct. 21 saw a White House official tell The Epoch Times that the summit between Trump and Putin had been called off by the U.S. president.

The decision followed a phone call between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who had also been expected to meet this week to prepare for a possible summit in Budapest, Hungary.

“Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call,” a White House official said in a statement. “Therefore, an additional-in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.”

Rubio’s meeting with Lavrov had been scheduled for this week, a source familiar with the planning told The Epoch Times.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Oct. 21, Trump said of the White House announcement: “I don’t want to have a wasted meeting. I don’t want to have a waste of time.

“We’ll be notifying you over the next two days as to what we’re doing.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said the peace process had stalled on Oct. 22 but acknowledged it required intervention from both Putin and Trump.

“Indeed, the current pause requires intervention at the highest level. But this intervention must be well-prepared,” Peskov said.

However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said preparations for the meeting in his country were ongoing, with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto currently in Washington.

“Preparations for the peace summit continue. The date is still uncertain. When the time comes, we will organize it,” he wrote on Facebook.

Emel Akan and Jacob Burg contributed to this report.