By Vladyslav , Smilianets and Anna Pruchnicka
KYIV, Sept 8 (Reuters) – Russia pummelled Kyiv with drones and missiles early on Tuesday, resuming its air attacks after a brief halt for the visit of U.S. peace negotiators, killing three people, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, and triggering fires across Ukraine’s capital.
Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said 16 people were also wounded in the city.
The attack damaged at least 14 high-rise buildings, a dorm, a school, a clinic, warehouses and other sites, officials said.
“Kyiv was exploding and burning,” said Katarina Mathernova, the EU ambassador to Ukraine.
Russia resumed its attacks after U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff left Kyiv on Sunday following talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as the Trump administration renewed its push to end Russia’s 4-1/2-year war in Ukraine.
They arrived following talks in Moscow, after which the Kremlin said it did not rule out the resumption of the three-way negotiations.
Both Moscow and Kyiv halted strikes on their capitals for three days to ensure the security of the U.S. peace negotiators.
“The moment the U.S. president’s peace envoys left, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin launched another massive, horrific attack against Kyiv,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.
Sybiha urged allies to ramp up pressure on Moscow, as well as to provide interceptors to down ballistic missiles, since Kyiv’s stocks of these have run critically low.
Prior to the talks, Russia had stepped up air attacks on Kyiv and nearby areas to nearly round-the-clock, rather than mainly at night, using faster jet-propelled drones that killed residents and disrupted activities.
The Russian defence ministry said Moscow hit military and logistic targets in Kyiv and the surrounding region, as well as in the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk, Russian news agencies said.
‘COMPLEX ATTACK’
Aside from Kyiv, eight other regions were targeted, Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said. Close to 100 people were evacuated after Russian drones hit a train in the northern Sumy region, he said.
Three people were wounded in an attack on a market on the outskirts of the Black Sea port city of Odesa, the governor said.
“It was a complex attack that the Russians tried to plan to cause as much harm to life as possible – ballistic missiles, cruise and anti-ship missiles, and jet-powered ‘shaheds’,” Zelenskiy said on X.
Ballistic missiles were still “particularly difficult” to intercept, he said.
Residents gathering near a heavily damaged apartment block in Kyiv said the let-up in attacks had allowed them to briefly forget the war.
“When foreign guests come to visit us, it’s always quiet here. You kind of relax, exhale, feel calm … It was so peaceful, as if there wasn’t a war at all,” supermarket worker Yana, 19, told Reuters.
“And then they left, and everything went back to normal. Russia gathers all its strength and, with more drones and ballistic missiles, starts bombing Kyiv again,” she said.
Residents sheltered in the Kyiv metro as explosions reverberated across the city, lighting up the night sky.
LONG-RANGE STRIKES
As the front lines remain largely static, both Russia and Ukraine have intensified long-range air strikes in recent months. Ukraine has targeted Russian oil infrastructure and warehouses of online retailers in an attempt to raise the cost to Moscow of continuing the war.
Both deny deliberately targeting civilians.
In Russia, Ukrainian drones damaged civilian infrastructure in the city of Saratov, while three people were killed in Ukrainian attacks on the Russia-annexed Crimea and in the Bryansk region, local officials said.
(Reporting Reuters in Kyiv, Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk, Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Kate Mayberry, Clarence Fernandez and Alex Richardson)
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