Trump says deadly Kyiv strike could set back peace efforts

A Russian missile strike that tore through a nine-story apartment building in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district and killed 24 people, including three children, put the gulf between diplomacy and battlefield reality back at the center of the war. President Donald Trump said the attack could set back peace efforts, even as he said he had discussed the conflict with Chinese President Xi Jinping and that both leaders wanted the fighting to end.

Trump made the comments aboard Air Force One on his way back from China, saying that until the previous night the situation had looked promising but that the Ukrainian losses changed the picture. His remarks underscored the contradiction at the heart of current diplomacy: public talk of negotiations is continuing while Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian cities remain capable of producing mass civilian casualties in a single night.

Rescue crews finished searching the destroyed building after more than a day, and Ukrainian officials confirmed that all 24 victims had been recovered, including 21 adults and three children. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the site, laid red roses at the rubble and called for Moscow to be punished. The strike landed during what was described as a U.S.-brokered May 9-11 cease-fire window and was part of Russia’s heaviest air attack on Kyiv in 2026, as well as one of the largest aerial assaults since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Ukraine’s air force said the barrage included dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones. Ukrainian officials said air defenses intercepted most of the drones but only 73 percent of the missiles, a reminder that even a strengthened air shield still leaves the capital exposed when Russia concentrates firepower on a single night. The attack intensified pressure on Kyiv at the same time Western and Chinese leaders were trading diplomatic signals about ending the war.

Russia responded by saying Ukrainian drones killed four people, including a child, in an overnight strike on Ryazan, where regional officials said apartment buildings were damaged. Both sides say they do not deliberately target civilians, but the scale of the dead in Kyiv and Ryazan showed how quickly the war keeps outrunning the language of restraint.

The timing also carried broader diplomatic weight. Vladimir Putin is expected to travel to China and meet Xi next week, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the exact dates would be announced soon. Peskov said Putin wanted to discuss Trump’s China visit with Xi, along with bilateral ties and other international issues, even as the latest strikes made clear that any path to talks remains hostage to the next barrage.