A Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian city of Voronezh overnight killed two people and injured 17, many of them passengers on a commuter train, according to the regional governor.

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Alexander Gusev said on Telegram that “more than 70 drones” had been shot down over the city between late Sunday and early Monday, describing the strike as a “terrorist attack”.

A large share of the injured, including two people in a serious condition, were travelling on a train in Voronezh’s left-bank suburbs when debris from a downed drone fell onto it, Gusev said. He did not say where the two victims were killed.

Fires broke out at several industrial sites, a business centre in the city centre and a residential building, though the governor said the industrial premises had not been significantly damaged.

Voronezh, home to more than one million people, lies around 500 kilometres south of Moscow. Several faculties at Voronezh State University have temporarily moved classes online, a university spokesperson told the state news agency TASS.

The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that Russia had launched 140 drones and four missiles against the country. Ukrainian air defences shot down 112 drones and three Kh-59/69 missiles.

A Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia injured four people. Local authorities reported damage to private houses, cars and a hotel building.

In the Chernihiv region, two people were wounded in a Russian strike. A hangar belonging to a private enterprise was hit, and a fire was also reported at a grain storage facility.

Emergency power cuts have been introduced in the Khmelnytskyi region: in the Kamianets-Podilskyi district, a Russian strike damaged an energy infrastructure facility.

Russian forces used guided aerial bombs in strikes on Izium. Three people were injured, and private residential houses and the building of an educational institution were damaged.

Talks back on the table

The strike comes days after Russia agreed on Wednesday to return to three-way negotiations with Ukraine and the United States in November. According to Moscow, the talks are due to take place in Abu Dhabi.

Direct talks between the two sides were held several times in 2025 but failed to produce a settlement, and have been frozen since the start of this year.

Speaking to Ukrainian television on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that a trilateral meeting would go ahead next month.

“We are ready to talk,” he said. “If it’s a territorial issue, it must be addressed at a leadership level. Other issues fall within the remit of the technical groups.”

Zelenskyy’s distinction suggests Kyiv wants the most contentious question in the war, control of occupied Ukrainian land, kept out of lower-level negotiations and reserved for direct talks between heads of state.

There have been tentative signs of de-escalation in recent days. On Friday, Kyiv and Moscow agreed to a localised ceasefire around Oleshky, a heavily damaged Russian-occupied town in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. The truce was brokered by US first lady Melania Trump.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Additional sources • AFP