Russia Hit Kyiv With Ballistic Missiles the Moment the American Negotiators Left, Poland Scrambled Its Jets

American peace envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff held talks in Moscow on Sunday, then flew to Kyiv to see Volodymyr Zelensky, and left. In the morning, almost as soon as their plane was up, ballistic missiles fell on Kyiv. Six people were injured and several more were trapped in a damaged residential building.

"Fires broke out across the city," mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram. The Kyiv military administration said a five-storey and a three-storey building had been damaged by falling debris and urged people to seek shelter. None of this is new for Kyiv. What is new is the timing.

The peace talks are ongoing, and the missiles fly the same night. Can that be read as coincidence? After the Moscow talks, the Kremlin said it does not rule out continuing trilateral negotiations. A few hours passed between that "we do not rule out" and a ballistic missile hitting a residential building.

Poland scrambled its jets

While explosions were heard in Kyiv, neighbouring Poland - a member of both NATO and the European Union - began military air operations to protect its own airspace, its armed forces announced. That is a sentence worth reading twice in the Balkans. This is not an exercise. This is a state that has to raise its air shield with every major strike on Kyiv, because the missiles fly too close to its border.

The war has lasted four and a half years. Donald Trump's administration has revived attempts to end it - and this is one more in a long line of envoy rounds shuttling from Moscow to Kyiv and back. Every round ends with a statement that the talks were constructive. Every night after that looks exactly like the night before it.

The strikes do not go in only one direction. That same night Ukrainian drones damaged civilian infrastructure and injured people in Saratov, a city on the Volga around 730 kilometres south-east of Moscow. A large refinery of the state-owned Rosneft operates in that region, alongside a series of other industrial and military facilities.

So: talks in Moscow, talks in Kyiv, missiles on Kyiv, drones on Saratov - all within the span of a single day. The question is not whether anyone wants peace. The question is who has an interest in the talks lasting longer than his stock of missiles.