KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone struck the headquarters of Ukraine’s security service in central Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday, ahead of diplomatic talks with U.S. officials on ending the war.
The air war between Russia and Ukraine has intensified as the conflict stretches toward five years since Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.
Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram that he had spoken with acting security chief Oleksandr Poklad following
the strike. The security service headquarters, located close to the historic St. Sophia Cathedral and international hotels, is among the agencies carrying out deep strike operations inside Russian territory. Nine people were wounded in the attack, local authorities said.
“The drone was deliberately targeted at the head of the SBU’s office in that building. I instructed Poklad to respond appropriately, significantly, and, if possible, in kind to the Russians for this attack,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the strike a “major escalation” that came as potential peace talks were building momentum, in a post on X.
“Moscow launched this strike during a renewed push for peace — laying bare its true rejection of diplomacy,” he said.
The strike came as a U.S. official said Friday that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Moscow and then to Kyiv over the weekend and into early next week. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not have more specific timing for the stops.
Zelenskyy said Thursday he was expecting U.S. envoys in Kyiv in the coming days as part of renewed diplomatic efforts to end the war.
Though U.S. efforts to negotiate a settlement have yet to produce a path to peace, in his nightly address Thursday Zelenskyy said that preliminary dates have been set for meetings in both Moscow and Kyiv. Ukraine’s negotiating team is in near-constant contact with the U.S. side and preparing for talks, he said.
“They confirmed they will have a meeting in Moscow and another one in Kyiv. We expect the latter to take place in the coming days. This is very important. It is important that America remain actively engaged,” he said, adding that Ukraine is ready for substantive, high-level negotiations.
Russian state news agency Tass reported Friday that Witkoff and Kushner would visit Moscow first, then Kyiv on Saturday and Sunday, though this could not be independently verified.
Speaking with journalists Friday, presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to confirm reports that Kushner and Witkoff would visit Moscow, only saying that the media would be informed if such a meeting took place.
Kushner and Witkoff last visited Moscow in January, where they met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This would be their first visit to Kyiv. After that meeting, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov described talks as constructive, but said that "reaching a long-term settlement can’t be expected without solving the territorial issue.”
However, further talks have lost momentum, with the White House’s attention focused on its conflict with Iran.
In a news conference on Wednesday, Putin described negotiations as “frozen.”
The latest diplomatic developments coincided with a “massive” overnight Russian attack on the Odesa region that killed one person and injured at least five others, including a child, regional head Oleh Kiper said in a post on Telegram. The attacks damaged multiple residential buildings, including two multistory blocks.
Overnight strikes elsewhere in Ukraine killed two police officers in Dnipro, officials said, while a drone attack in Kyiv wounded three people after hitting a residential building.
Russian forces have relentlessly struck civilian areas. Previously, these attacks occurred mostly at night, but now they are happening during the day as well. The front line in eastern and southern Ukraine remains largely deadlocked.
In Russia, a large-scale Ukrainian drone strike hit the Black Sea resort city of Sochi and the nearby district of Sirius, regional officials said Friday. They said the attack sparked a blaze at an oil depot but gave no further details. Russian media outlets reported two depots were hit, with one fire in Sochi and another in Sirius.
Ukraine has repeatedly targeted oil facilities that form the backbone of Russia’s economy, one of the world’s largest energy producers. Growing economic pressure and public frustration have mounted in Russia after months of escalating Ukrainian strikes on refineries and e-commerce hubs that have caused nationwide disruptions.
The barrages prompted Putin last month to decree that the state can temporarily seize control of critical infrastructure facilities if private owners fail to protect them from Ukrainian drone attacks or don’t rebuild them after strikes. Analysts said the move was aimed at forcing companies to pay for their own security and bring damaged assets back into service, despite the cost.
Finnish authorities said Friday they were investigating how a Russian-made drone ended up on a rocky shoreline in the Pellinge archipelago east of Helsinki.
Finland’s Border Guard said what appears to be a Geoscan 701 drone, manufactured by a Russian company, was found on the shore. “The device model in question is used by both state and civilian operators, and it is not possible at this stage to determine its intended use or identify the country or entity operating it,” the Border Guard said in a statement.
State broadcaster Yle reported the drone was discovered Tuesday by a fisherman, Peter Kellgren, who said it “was out there in the open sea” and appeared to have drifted ashore from elsewhere.
Geoscan describes itself as one of Russia’s leading drone manufacturers, and says the 701 model is designed for large-scale aerial surveying.
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Associated Press writers Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw, Poland, Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
