By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
KYIV — The quiet lasted three days. Then the missiles came back.
Russia launched ballistic and cruise weapons at Kyiv shortly after U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner wrapped up a visit to the city for peace negotiations, according to Fox News and Al Jazeera. A brief lull in fighting, timed to the envoys' presence, ended with the resumption of strikes. A U.S. envoy said Washington was "encouraged" by the talks and that a White House official told Reuters next steps would be announced "in coming weeks" — a phrase that offers little to people sitting in bomb shelters tonight.
The diplomacy landed alongside a domestic shake-up. Ukraine's prosecutor general, Ruslan Kravchenko, resigned after his offices were searched over the weekend amid corruption allegations, the Guardian reported. The resignation comes as Kyiv tries to hold together both a war effort and a reform record that Western allies watch closely before signing further aid packages.
On that front, Britain moved to shore up Ukraine's defenses. London has committed £100 million to bolster Ukraine's air defenses through the winter, including Patriot missile supplies that have dwindled under the weight of Russian attacks, along with interceptors, artillery rounds and drones, funneled through NATO's prioritized list of Ukraine's needs, the Guardian reported.
Separately, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the attendance of senior Serbian officials at the funeral of Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić, calling it a "failure to confront a dark chapter in Europe's recent history" and questioning Serbia's path toward the EU. Mladić was buried with military honors before a crowd the Guardian described as numbering in the tens of thousands.
None of this settles the war. It confirms only that talk of peace and the sound of incoming missiles are, for now, arriving on the same schedule.
— Compiled from reporting by Fox News, Al Jazeera and the Guardian.
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