Ukrainian drone strike on Voronezh kills two as Kyiv and Moscow prepare to restart talks

Published on 26/10/2026 - 10:00 GMT+1 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. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT 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. 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.