Russia fires 3 waves of ballistic missiles at Kyiv after peace talks, Zelenskyy says
ABC News
Russia launched an intense missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported on Thursday, hours after President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg for the latest round of U.S.-led peace talks.
Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram that Russia launched 21 ballistic missiles toward the capital in three waves.
“Unfortunately, there have been numerous hits and damages in the city: residential buildings, energy infrastructure, infrastructure at one of the railway stations and the metro, shopping centers, and businesses,” Zelenskyy wrote. “Even a monastery was among the damaged objects.”
At least two people were killed and 34 people injured in Kyiv and the surrounding areas, Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia used a mixture of ballistic and cruise missiles in its overnight attacks, none of which were intercepted. Russia also launched 210 drones, the air force said, of which 181 were shot down or otherwise suppressed. The air force reported impacts in 32 locations.
Kyiv was the main focus of the latest Russian strikes. But elsewhere, at least two people were killed and 17 people were injured by a Russian airstrike on a market in the northeastern Kharkiv region, local officials said.
The Russian attacks came on the heels of Witkoff’s latest round of shuttle diplomacy, which saw Trump’s envoy travel first to the Norwegian capital Oslo to meet with Zelenskyy and then to St. Petersburg to meet with Putin.
“These discussions were constructive, and will continue with trilateral talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine at the technical level,” Witkoff said in a post to X.
Zelenskyy said the Russian strikes were “demonstrative” and indicated “no real changes in its attitude towards everything that is happening.” The Ukrainian leader also appeared to take a swipe at Witkoff’s description — made during his meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg — of the Russian president as a “humanitarian.”
“When Russian ballistic missiles are the response to negotiations, real pressure must be applied to Russia to encourage different actions,” Zelenskyy wrote. “Strengthening air defense, the rapid supply of missiles, the ability to destroy ballistic missile launch systems and sanctions for the war — all of this is necessary.”
Ukraine, meanwhile, continued its own long-range strike campaign into Russia, with Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin reporting a major attack on the Russian capital consisting of at least 630 Ukrainian drones — one of the largest such attacks of this year to date.
Several buildings, among them residential properties, were damaged in the attacks, Sobyanin said in posts to Telegram, with at least two people injured in the capital and two in other towns.
In total, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 808 Ukrainian drones overnight, with interceptions reported over 17 Russian regions, occupied Crimea and the Black Sea.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, reported temporary flight restrictions at all four of Moscow’s international airports — Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Zhukovsky and Sheremetyevo — as well as airports in Pskov, Tambov, Sochi, Gelendzhik, Kaluga and Yaroslavl.
Former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov attends a march in memory of Russian opposition leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov on March 1, 2015 in Moscow, Russia. (Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Once one of the most powerful men in Russia, Mikhail Kasyanov now lives in exile in Latvia, his name on a list of “extremists and terrorists” that the Kremlin alleges are trying to overthrow the state.
Kasyanov first served as Russia’s finance minister before being elevated to prime minister under President Vladimir Putin from May 2000 to February 2004 — the early years of Putin’s time in office when the future strongman was embedding his control and beginning to formulate his vision of a revitalized Russia.
Putin’s decades-long project culminated in the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a gambit now in its fifth year. Kasyanov told ABC News last week that the campaign has achieved none of Putin’s goals and could yet prove an existential challenge to the Kremlin regime.
In recent months, Kasyanov told ABC News on the sidelines of the Chatham House think tank conference in London, “the overall sentiment, overall attitude, to Putin started to change.”
Among the factors applying more pressure to the Kremlin are expanding Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on Russia’s oil production, refining and export facilities — plus on the capital Moscow and the so-called “second capital” St. Petersburg — apparent public concern about spreading fuel shortages, troubling macro-economic indicators and new restrictions on internet usage, Kasyanov said.
Putin, Kasyanov said, built his image around providing both stability and security. “There is nothing on this — no stability and no security,” he said, adding, “The situation now has started to change in the minds of people — not only the ruling group, but also just the middle class, who in fact, could in any country be a driving force for any changes.”
That middle class is a key constituency for the Kremlin. Concentrated in Russia’s largest cities, analysts have watched keenly for any hint of dissent from this social strata.
Putin’s continued refusal to order a general mobilization despite Russia’s enormous battlefield losses and reported manpower strains have been interpreted by some analysts as a tacit acknowledgement that the Kremlin does not want to risk urban, middle class ire. “Putin is very much concerned about this,” Kasyanov suggested.
In cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, Kasyanov said, it had until recently been possible to continue as if “nothing is happening.”
“But, in the spring and now, of course, Ukraine changed their attitude. They have an advantage in long-range missiles and they have an advantage in drones,” Kasyanov said.
“Gradually, they moved the war from being an ‘accident’ somewhere, an emergency case somewhere in the corner of Russia, to Russia — even to Moscow. And that is quite a significant change.”
‘He needs pressure’
Kayanov said Western powers should seek to exploit the growing pressure on Putin and force him back to the negotiating table with genuine concessions, not the same maximalist demands the Kremlin has long made of Ukraine.
“It could happen by the end of the year if consistent pressure continues,” Kasyanov said. Russia’s growing budget deficit — which as of last month reached 2.5% of GDP, according to preliminary Finance Ministry data — could prove a particular pain point, he added.
So too might international sanctions on — and long-range Ukrainian drone attacks on — Russia’s vital oil industry, Kasyanov added. “By the end of the year, he will face a big problem,” Kasyanov said of Putin.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov this week acknowledged some economic strains, telling reporters that Russia’s rate of growth is currently “insufficient.” But Peskov said the problems facing the country were not critical, but rather a reflection of the “rather dire state” of the global economy.
On the diplomatic front, Kasyanov said Moscow has largely failed to convert apparent diplomatic openings with Washington — for example its success at Putin’s summit with President Donald Trump in Anchorage in August 2025.
“What Putin wanted was to divide the transatlantic unity, dreaming of what they call the ‘Anchorage spirit,'” Kasyanov said, referring to the U.S.-Russian understanding that Moscow said was reached at the Alaska summit, which was widely interpreted as a diplomatic coup for the Kremlin.
Broadly, Kasyanov suggested that Washington had a “wrong understanding of the whole problem.” He added, “All those years, it was a useless undertaking trying to give a carrot to Putin. Because they don’t understand what the Putin regime is about.”
The negotiations, Kasyanov suggested, were interpreted by the Kremlin “as a demonstration of weakness.” Nonetheless, both Moscow and Kyiv have acknowledged that the current conflict can only end with a diplomatic settlement.
Trump has repeatedly said he is the only Western leader capable of pressuring Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree a deal to end the fighting. This week, Trump told Fox News he believes that Putin is “ready to make a deal,” possibly “soon.”
“I tell him the same thing all the time. I don’t want to go into great detail, but I say: ‘Vladimir, it’s time for you to stop. It’s time for this war to end,'” Trump said. “It takes two to tango. But I think he’s ready to make a deal,” Trump added.
Earlier this month, Trump told ABC News of a potential deal, “We’re getting much closer than people realize, and President Putin wants it to end.”
But for all the Russian maneuvers and White House criticism directed toward Kyiv, Western funds and weapons have continued to flow into Ukrainian hands.
Last week, during a warm face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump said Ukraine would be allowed to produce key Patriot surface-to-air system interceptors.
“That is, I think, creating a shock in Moscow,” Kasyanov said of the resolute Western backing of Ukraine.
Life after Putin
Putin dismissed Kasyanov and his cabinet in early 2004, weeks before that year’s presidential election. In the years that followed, Kasyanov became a prominent opposition figure, faced fraud charges — which he denied — and was blocked from standing as a candidate in Russia’s 2008 presidential election.
After Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine In 2022, Kasyanov left Russia. He now leads the People’s Freedom Party from Riga — “temporarily,” according to his business card.
Kasyanov, 68, said he has no concrete political ambitions in a post-Putin Russia. Rather, he suggested that the best case scenario would be a “long process” of political normalization and eventual democratization.
A years-long “gray period,” he said, could see Putin’s successors allow “imitation” or “quasi” elections and the return of a true political opposition, which Kasyanov hopes will eventually give way to a genuine vote that draws real legitimacy from the population.
“If Putin stays in power, it means there will be another period in which Russia will represent a threat and there will continue to be some kind of negotiations and preparations for some kind of revanche, as we saw in previous years,” Kasyanov said.
For the time being, Kasyanov said he expects Putin to simultaneously seek to “destroy unity” within Europe and within the transatlantic system and seek negotiations.
On the domestic front, Putin will continue to keep a tight grip on the narrative, Kasyanov said, lionizing Russian achievements in the war like the retention of Crimea, further territorial gains in southern and eastern Ukraine and a supposed defeat of NATO.
In the long term, Kasyanov said he still hopes for Putin to leave the scene, one way or another. But he doubts Putin will be overthrown from the inside.
“I don’t think there will be a coup, because there are no such people. All those people inside who were capable, with strength, disappeared,” Kasyanov said. There are, he added, people in Russia who are “ready for changes, but they are not ready to fight, because they immediately will be in jail.”
“When the situation starts to change, some of us could come back to participate in quasi-elections, which will happen not in two years after Putin, maybe in three years, maybe in four years. And at that time, real change could start,” he said.
“I hope my country will be a normal European state,” Kasyanov said. “We’ll see.”
The capital of the oil state and surrounding areas offer a stark contrast between Venezuela’s oil wealth and the daily reality of communities living near the country’s energy infrastructure. (Photo by Jose Isaac Bula/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced Friday that the U.S. and Venezuela have reached a “historic” oil deal that he said would give the U.S. a majority control of billions of barrels of oil reserves in the Caribbean country and lower gas prices for Americans.
In a social media post, Trump called it “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY” and said it would provide majority U.S. control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela.
The president claimed that the deal will serve to “substantially lower” gas prices for Americans “long into the future.”
The announcement comes as oil and gas prices continue to surge amid the Iran war, which reached the six-month mark on Friday.
“At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer,” Trump said in the post.
A U.S. official with knowledge of the deal told ABC News that the U.S. will have a 55% share in a joint venture with a private Venezuelan company, which will be split between equity ownership and production.
This creates the “second-largest private oil company by reserves in the world,” the official added.
The interim Venezuelan president granted the private company a 100-year lease for oil fields totaling 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, the official said.
In a statement in English posted on social media, Rodriguez hailed the agreement with the U.S. and said it would “have a significant impact on our nation’s revival.”
The U.S. official said the supply of at-cost oil produced from this company will help fill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and also benefit the U.S. military.
The deal was negotiated by the Defense Department and State Department, according to the official.
Venezuela has been beset by economic crises for years and suffered two powerful back-to-back earthquakes in June that left more than 6,000 people dead.
Rodriguez thanked Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and said the agreement represents a “historic milestone” in relations between the two countries.
“The agreement will allow for a significant increase in oil production with the participation of private operators,” Rodriguez said in the statement, saying the deal calls for the development of 17 strategic fields, with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels of oil, and an investment of more than $100 billion, and more than $209 billion in tax revenue.
“Venezuela is thus ushering in a new era of recovery, growth, production, security, and prosperity for our people,” she said in the post.
Venezuela is recognized as holding the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
Chevron, the only U.S. oil company currently operating in Venezuela, declined to comment on the president’s post.
Trump also said the deal would “greatly strengthen” the relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela.
In January, the U.S. carried out a military operation in Venezuela to capture then-President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and bring them to the U.S. to face charges including narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.
Maduro and his wife, who have pleaded not guilty, are set to go on trial in New York City, in 2027.
In a social media post, Rubio called the deal a “huge win” for both the U.S. and Venezuela.
“It demonstrates how President Trump’s bold foreign policy is driving America First wins: securing stable reserves and low-cost oil in our Hemisphere and lowering gas prices here at home,” Rubio said in the post. “For the Venezuelan people, this deal will bring nearly $100 billion in private investment, support thousands of high-paying jobs, and drive the reconstruction of Venezuela’s economy.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with one of the passengers involved in subduing an attacker during a flight on a FlyDubai plane, after he arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept. 30, 2026. (Prime Minister’s Office)
(LONDON) — A man who was among a group of passengers who subdued an attacker on a flight to Tel Aviv on Wednesday was welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he returned to Israel later in the evening.
The prime minister posted a video of meeting the passenger named Yaniv Hayun, who still had blood on his shirt from the encounter.
Yaniv and a group of other passengers aboard FlyDubai Flight 1073 were able to get into the cockpit after an unidentified pilot stabbed the co-pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar and took control of the plane, Israeli officials said.
The suspect allegedly plummeted the plane in an attempt to crash it and kill everyone aboard, Israeli investigators said.
“And then there was a very sharp nosedive down, something that threw me to where the flight attendants stand in front of the cockpit, I flew sideways,” Yaniv said.
Yaniv said he placed the attacker in a chokehold and pulled him out. And then he quickly went for the plane’s controls and briefly flew the plane.
“And the plane started to level out a bit more, and then the (third) pilot told me he’s taking control from here,” he said.
The third pilot flew it to Saudi Arabia, where the plane landed and the passengers disembarked. Capt. Machchhar was being treated for his injuries and the suspect is in custody, officials said.
“I imagine if we entered the sky of the country it wouldn’t have been good,” Yaniv told the prime minister during their meeting.
