Russia and Ukraine launched overnight drone strikes against each other as the US confirmed American officials were set to meet Russian representatives in Abu Dhabi as part of efforts to end the war.
Officials in Kyiv said at least six people had been killed in Russian strikes on the city, while Russian officials said at least three had been killed in a Ukrainian strike in the Rostov region.
The latest attacks come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed proposed changes to the controversial 28-point US peace plan.
On Sunday, US and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva to discuss the draft plan, which had been criticised by leaders in Kyiv and Europe as too favourable to Russia.
It appears Ukraine’s European allies produced an amended version of the plan after rejecting parts which favoured Russia’s war aims.
“Now the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable,” Zelensky said on Monday. “Many correct elements have been incorporated into this framework.”
A Kremlin official rejected the amendments as “completely unconstructive”. However, a US official on Tuesday told the BBC that its team would be meeting Russian representatives in Abu Dhabi to further discuss the plan.
Separately, a virtual “coalition of the willing” meeting of Ukraine’s European allies will also be taking place on Tuesday to discuss developments, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said.
The latest round of talks come as Russia and Ukraine exchanged overnight strikes.
Kyiv’s military administration chief, Tymur Tkachenko, said a fire had broken out at a high-rise residential apartment building in the Dniprovskyi district, forcing the evacuation of its residents.
Emergency services on the scene said 18 people had been rescued, including three children, and the search for victims was ongoing after the fire had been contained.
Residents of a high-rise apartment in the city’s central Pechersk district were evacuated after it was also set ablaze during the strikes according to Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko.
He added that the building suffered damage to the upper floors, but the fire had been extinguished.
Ukraine’s air defence units responded to the attack as explosions were heard across Kyiv and residents were urged to take shelter in underground car parks and bunkers.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy also confirmed a “massive, combined enemy attack” on the country’s energy infrastructure facilities.
In Russia’s Rostov region, the death toll from a Ukrainian strike had risen to three, after initial reports of one death, officials said.
According to Russia’s acting governor of the Rostov region Yuri Sliusar, two died in hospital.
One of the deaths was reported in the city of Taganrog, where mayor Svetlana Kambulova vowed “necessary response measures”.
Another 10 people were injured in the strikes.
In the southern Krasnodar region, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev described Ukraine’s overnight bombardment “one of the Kyiv regime’s most sustained and massive attacks”.
The proposed peace plan – drafted by US and Russian officials last month – had caused much consternation in Ukraine and among its European allies, who said it was too favourable to the Kremlin.
But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected the idea that the Trump administration was “not engaging with both sides equally in this war”.
After talks in Geneva between the US and Ukraine concluded, President Donald Trump suggested that “something good just may be happening” but added: “Don’t believe it until you see it.”
As he welcomed the proposed changes, Zelensky said the “main problem” was Putin’s demand for legal recognition of the territory Russia had taken.
Counter-proposals – reportedly drafted by the UK, France and Germany – excluded any recognition of Russian-held regions, raised Ukraine’s permitted army size, and left the door open to Ukraine joining Nato.
Russia has consistently demanded full Ukrainian withdrawal from the whole of the eastern Donbas, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Moscow’ forces also control Crimea and large parts of two other regions, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Tens of thousands of soldiers and thousands of civilians have been killed or injured, and millions of people have fled their homes, since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
