Peace talks in St. Petersburg, civilians die overnight in a park

US envoy Steve Witkoff will meet Russian officials in St. Petersburg on October 21 to discuss peace proposals on Ukraine drawn up by Europeans and Americans, according to The Kyiv Independent. The meeting comes at a time when the gap between the tone of diplomacy and that of the battlefield is more visible than usual.

Hours before the meeting was announced, a Russian drone attack hit a public park in Ukraine, killing six people, including two children. US President Donald Trump commented on the episode, calling Russia’s conduct in Ukraine “fine.” Asked about Moscow’s actions, he said:

“Russia, frankly, has been okay about Ukraine. They haven’t done much” — Donald Trump, President of the United States

The statement comes within the same news cycle in which other drone attacks caused casualties on Ukrainian territory: two people died in Kharkiv oblast, while an elderly couple was killed in the village of Korotych, according to the same source.

On air defense, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that early warning systems for ballistic missiles are operational again, after days in which alarms had failed to sound in time. The news, reported by The Kyiv Independent, marks a point of continuity with previous weeks, during which the failure to activate alarms had drawn public attention and criticism from the population affected by nighttime attacks.

The double track emerging from this day — an American negotiator heading to Russia to discuss peace, and Russian drones striking a Ukrainian public park in the same hours — sums up the non-linear nature of the process underway. On one hand, Washington is trying to keep open a diplomatic channel with Moscow based on proposals already drawn up by Europeans and Americans; on the other, attacks on the ground continue to produce civilian casualties, in a context where the US president’s public statements appear at odds with the immediately preceding news. There are, at the moment, no public details about the content Witkoff will bring to Russian officials, nor a timeline for any developments following the October 21 meeting.

It remains to be seen whether the St. Petersburg meeting will produce concrete steps or whether, as has already happened at other points in this conflict, it will remain a diplomatic chapter separate from the sequence of attacks on the ground. The civilian casualty count reported today — six in the public park, two in Kharkiv oblast, two in the village of Korotych — remains the most up-to-date figure available at the time of publication.