Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv, mayor says, weeks before planned peace talks

The attack follows another ballistic strike on the capital on October 21, and CNN has reported that Ukraine has run out of its best defence against such missiles.

Russia fired ballistic missiles at Kyiv today, the city's mayor said, extending a pattern in which strikes on the capital run in parallel with a diplomatic track rather than giving way to it. The previous ballistic attack on the city came on October 21, and explosions were reported there again on October 26.

The talks have moved further than at any point this month. Russia has accepted a trilateral format with Ukraine and the US, team-level talks are planned for early November, and working-level sessions are tentatively set for Abu Dhabi or Switzerland. Yet the strikes have not slowed the process, and they have not moved Moscow on its central demand for the rest of Donbas, which is unchanged. The gap between scheduling progress and the fighting is the story, and it is the fighting that tells us more about Russian intentions.

Moscow has been open about its direction. On October 4 Russia's defence ministry said it would intensify attacks on Kyiv and other regions, linking this to President Zelenskiy's pledge to keep hitting Russian oil refineries.

Ukraine's ability to blunt the strikes is in doubt. A Ukrainian official said Kyiv had 10 Patriot interceptors on October 7, with resupply irregular since May, and CNN has reported that Ukraine has exhausted its supply of US-made Patriot missiles, the system it relied on most against ballistic missiles. If that is right, each further salvo is harder to stop.

For investors, the lesson is that scheduled meetings are not a ceasefire. A talks calendar has not changed Russian behaviour, and until money, missiles or territory move, the November sessions are better read as process than as progress.