News And Information From Ukraine

A plume of smoke rises behind St Andrew’s Church after a Russian attack, Kyiv, Ukraine, September 8, 2026. Photo by Danylo Antoniuk/Ukrinform

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Dispatches from Ukraine. Day 1658.

Russian attacks.

Following the peace talks visit, Russia launched 166 drones, 32 cruise missiles, and an unspecified number of anti-ship and ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to Ukrainian forces. The Air Force said it downed 142 drones, 31 cruise missiles, and two ballistic missiles.

Kyiv: Fourteen people, including two children, were injured in Russian jet-powered drone attacks on Kyiv on September 9.

On September 8, Russian forces launched a massive strike on the Ukrainian capital using ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as jet-powered UAVs. The attack caused significant damage to civilian infrastructure, residential areas, and businesses. Four people were killed and more than a dozen were injured.

The U.S. Envoys’ Visit.

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled between Moscow and Kyiv to revive stalled peace negotiations. The American delegation’s meetings with Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy generated no breakthrough, while Russia and Ukraine continue to expand their strikes with more sophisticated weapons.

Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin for more than three hours in Moscow on Sept. 5. The envoys traveled to Kyiv the following day, marking their first official visit to Ukraine. They spent more than four hours with Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s senior officials. Kushner said they had put new ideas on the table to end the war. However, none of them appears to resolve the disputes between Kyiv and Moscow.

In earlier rounds of talks, the sharpest disputes centered on Donbas. Moscow has captured about three-quarters of the eastern region and has demanded that Ukraine withdraw from the rest. Zelenskyy has described a retreat from fortified positions in Donbas as a red line for Kyiv. Speaking to reporters after the latest talks, the Ukrainian president further elevated the importance of Donbas, calling it “the question of the entire war.”

War updates.

With months of diplomacy stalled, the near-stalemated war in Ukraine entered a new phase this summer.

Ukraine expanded the range of targets inside Russia. Since mid-July, it has hit more than 25 warehouses belonging to Wildberries and Ozon, Russia’s two biggest e-commerce companies. In all, the attacks destroyed about 20 million square feet of storage and inflicted more than $10 billion in damage to infrastructure and goods, with another $12 billion in potential lost sales.

The marketplaces were not Ukraine’s only targets. In the first half of the year, Ukraine struck Russian oil refineries at least 194 times, an 11-fold increase from 2025.

In retaliation for Ukraine’s strikes, Russia pounded Ukraine’s Black Sea ports with ballistic missiles, bringing grain exports to a halt. Even so, the Agriculture Ministry, banking on overland routes, has lowered its grain export forecast by 12% to 38 million to 40 million tons for the coming marketing year. Unlike during the blockade of 2022, Ukraine has hit back at Russian ports with naval drones, striking the grain terminals at Novorossiysk in August.

In early August, Russia sent two jet-powered drones that burned the warehouse of Ranok, a children’s publisher and schoolbook producer, and the distribution hub of the KnyhoLand bookstore chain in Kharkiv. The fire destroyed some 8 million books, close to a quarter of Ukraine’s entire print run last year.

Moscow has focused its heaviest strikes on Kyiv, attacking the capital with drones and missiles nightly. Ukraine ran out of Patriot PAC-3 interceptors in July, the only munition Kyiv has that can bring down ballistic projectiles. Of 195 ballistic missiles fired that month, Ukraine intercepted a record-low 29.

This surge is due to jet-powered drones, first detected by Ukraine’s military intelligence last September. Russia is shifting gears fast, replacing the old, propeller-driven Shaheds with new models. Ukraine detected some 1,500 Russian jet drones in July; their number doubled the following month. The new drones fly farther and higher, reaching speeds of more than 370 mph. That makes them difficult targets for Ukrainian air defenses, which since late 2024 have been using small interceptor drones against Russian Shaheds.

Over the past few months, both sides have expanded the scope of targets they are willing to strike. While Ukrainian attacks are unlikely to topple Russia’s economy, Kyiv has made it harder for the Russian population to ignore the war.