Ukraine: over 70 killed in two days of Russian strikes as Kyiv's team heads to Miami for talks with US envoys

Key takeaways

• More than 70 people have been killed in Russian strikes on Ukraine over two days, President Volodymyr Zelensky says.
• In Kramatorsk, a strike on Thursday tore through two passenger buses. With a later drone attack, city authorities put the day's toll in the city at at least 35, Reuters reported.
• A day earlier, a missile hit an apartment block in Pryluky (Chernihiv region), killing 22 people, including five children.
• Ukrainian negotiators meet Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Miami on Friday and Saturday. European officials have also been invited.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says there is currently no prospect of a negotiated settlement; the Kremlin agrees the war is at a stalemate. Zelensky rejects that.

The strikes

On Thursday, 8 October, a Russian glide-bomb strike hit two buses in Kramatorsk, a frontline city in the Donetsk region. Photos released by local authorities showed burnt-out vehicles on the road. AFP reported 30 dead in the bus strike and three more killed by shelling in a nearby village; Reuters said a drone attack in the evening killed two more, bringing the city's toll to at least 35.

• Kramatorsk City Council said there were "absolutely no military targets" in the area.
• Donetsk governor Vadym Filashkin accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians.
• The UN human rights chief called the scale and manner of the attacks "reprehensible".
• Zelensky said the attack "will not go unanswered".

On Wednesday, a Russian cruise missile hit a five-storey residential building in Pryluky, about 150 km east of Kyiv, killing 22 people, including five children. Visiting the site on Thursday, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said it showed Putin's "evil intent".

Kyiv is also under pressure: more than 3 million residents lost power on 8 October after a strike on an energy facility, and rolling power cuts are back as winter approaches.

Russia says it does not target civilians. The Kremlin has denied Zelensky's claim that Putin approved mass attacks on civilian areas.

The Miami talks

Zelensky said his team — including chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov, Rustem Umerov, Sergiy Kyslytsya and David Arakhamia — would meet Witkoff and Kushner for two days. According to US sources quoted by AFP, officials from Britain, France, Germany, NATO and the EU were invited. One US source said the sides would discuss "new ideas" developed during the envoys' recent trips to Moscow and Kyiv, adding: "They are all nervous about the winter."

"Stalemate" — and Zelensky's reply

• Rubio told Greek newspaper Kathimerini that a negotiated end is not currently attainable, because Russia insists on getting all of Donetsk region without fighting for it. He called the stalemate "very dangerous".
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he agreed and saw no immediate prospect of a Putin–Zelensky–Trump summit. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said there were no plans for US-mediated Russia–Ukraine talks.
• Zelensky said Washington cannot discuss future business deals with Russia while calling the war a diplomatic dead end. He asked the US to open Starlink for Ukraine to help target Russian missile launchers, and pushed for tougher sanctions on Russia's economy.

Ukraine has also kept up long-range strikes inside Russia. Russian tech company Yandex told AFP that a drone attack caused a fire at one of its data centres — the first strike of its kind.

The bigger picture

The UN has verified more than 17,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, and says the real number is considerably higher.

This is a developing story. We will update it after the Miami meetings.