Source: BBC

Intense Russian drone and missile strikes on cities in Ukraine have left at least six people dead, including two children, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Another 21 people were wounded, in another night of attacks that he said proved Moscow had not come under enough pressure for its continued war.

Hours earlier, US President Donald Trump said his plans for an imminent summit in Budapest with Russia’s Vladimir Putin had been shelved as he did not want a “wasted meeting”.

The Kremlin has rejected calls for a ceasefire along the current front lines made both Trump and European leaders.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military said it had attacked a Russian chemical plant in the Bryansk border region late on Tuesday with UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

Calling the strike “a successful hit” that penetrated the Russian air defence system, military officials said the Bryansk plant “produces gunpowder, explosives and rocket fuel components used in ammunition and missiles employed by the enemy to shell the territory of Ukraine”.

Zelensky, who was due to visit Swedish defence contractor Saab on Wednesday, returned from talks with Trump last Friday, having failed to persuade the US president to provide long-range Tomahawk missiles.

“As soon as the issue of long-range missiles became a little further away for us, for Ukraine, then almost automatically Russia became less interested in diplomacy,” Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian capital came under a wave of attacks overnight, the first such strikes since 28 September. 

A couple in their 60s were killed when a drone hit their high-rise building in the city, and four people were killed in the wider Kyiv region. Among the victims were a woman, a six-month-old baby and a girl aged 12.

The capital was under a ballistic missile warning for most of the night, and echoed to the sound of explosions. By morning rescue teams fought fires in residential buildings.

Across Ukraine, Russian attacks once again targeted energy infrastructure and emergency power outages were imposed in several areas.