Russia bombards Kyiv with missile attacks hours after agreeing to peace talks

Well, Russia appears to be taking advantage of the widening diplomatic divide between the White House and Ukraine. Its forces are targeting Ukrainian cities that are finding it difficult to defend themselves. At least nine people were killed in overnight strikes. The country is critically low on the interceptors needed for anti-missile batteries. Ukraine gets them from European allies who buy them from the U.S., But there is new reporting that the White House is delaying those transfers of critical weapons. For more on all of this, let's bring in the CBC's Julia Chapman, who's following the story for us from London. So, Julia, President Donald Trump may be pressuring Ukraine to end the war, but securing any sort of peace deal seems to be getting more and more difficult on this front. What do we know so far? That's right, Arthi, and there were more widespread Russian attacks today against Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying there were three waves of missile attacks launched at the capital, Kyiv, including three missiles using cluster warheads. There were damage reported to residential buildings, a train station in the city, a shopping mall and a monastery. The southern bridge that stretches across the Dnipro River in the capital was also hit. It's been targeted repeatedly in recent weeks, and that caused some disruption to Kyiv's metro system. There were 12 regions across Ukraine that were attacked overnight by Russia, nine people killed in total, as you say. In Odessa, in the south, the port was badly damaged and some vessels that are reportedly used by the Ukrainian military were hit. elsewhere in the country. In Kharkiv, there was one person killed as homes, gas stations and vehicles were attacked by Russian drones and missiles. And President Volodymyr Zelensky says this really shows that there is no change in Russia's attitude towards the war, despite the U.S.'s diplomatic efforts. On the other side, Moscow's mayor says that Ukraine launched 630 drones at the Russian capital. Most of them, he says, were intercepted, but there were two people reportedly injured. But certainly we've seen no signs of de-escalation after that visit by President Trump's envoy, overseas envoy Steve Witkoff, to St. Petersburg yesterday. And Julia, when we talk about U.S. involvement here in those discussions, there have been cases where the U.S. appears to be speaking directly to Russia and Ukraine can be seen to be left out. Is that what we're witnessing here? Well, certainly Ukrainians have been involved in negotiations with the Americans, but increasingly we are seeing a more favorable approach towards the Russian administration from President Donald Trump. Yesterday, Steve Witkoff said he had constructive talks with the Russian president in St. Petersburg. We don't really know the details of what they discussed or what proposals the American envoy put forward to the Russian side. But we certainly heard warm language with Witkoff calling President Putin a humanitarian. Now, Russia has downplayed any talk of imminent progress towards ending the war. But yesterday, President Trump said he's optimistic that the conflict can come to an end soon. He's talking to Vladimir Putin about settling his war with Ukraine, which I think we're getting closer to, by the way, maybe now the closest we've been. The concern in Ukraine and in much of Europe is that because we are seeing so much more warm language between the US and Russia, that any kind of imminent end to this conflict would be on Moscow's terms. President Zelenskyy today says Ukraine is willing to compromise. He understands that there do need to be solutions found, and that is important. But he says that Russia is responding to negotiations with ballistic missiles, and that means more pressure needs to be put on Moscow. Julia, thank you for this. That's the CBC's Julia Chapman in London.