Kremlin Says Ukraine Peace Process Is Paused but Expects It to Resume

The Kremlin said Monday that the Ukraine peace process is on pause but expects it to resume. The statement responded to remarks by President Trump that a Russian missile strike on a Kyiv apartment building had delayed peace efforts. The strike killed 24 people, including three children.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said attention should also be paid to ongoing Ukrainian strikes on civilian targets in Russia.

Moscow faced its largest drone attack in over a year over the weekend. At least three people were killed in the wider region around the capital, and debris fell on Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport without causing damage or affecting flights. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the drone strikes and said they were entirely justified.

Russian drone strikes on Ukraine overnight wounded eight people, Ukrainian authorities said. In Ukraine's strikes on Russia, a woman was killed after a drone hit her home in Khimki, and two men died in the village of Pogorelki, according to local Gov.

Andrei Vorobyev. One man was also killed after a drone struck a truck in the Belgorod region. In Moscow itself, at least 12 people were wounded in the nighttime strike, mostly near the entrance to the city's oil refinery, mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported.

The Indian Embassy in Moscow reported that an Indian worker died in a drone strike in the Moscow region, while three other Indian nationals were hospitalized with injuries. Russian defenses shot down 81 drones headed for Moscow overnight, state agency Tass reported, citing Sobyanin.

Russian air defenses destroyed 556 drones over Russia, the occupied Crimean Peninsula and the Azov and Black Seas, the Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday morning. Zelenskyy said the drones had flown more than 300 miles from Ukrainian territory. He said Ukraine was overcoming Russian air defense systems concentrated in and around the capital.

Gould Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Ukraine's large-scale attack appeared to be retaliation for recent Russian attacks on Kyiv. Those strikes came immediately after the end of a brief ceasefire that allowed Russia to hold its annual Victory Day parade on May 9.

Gould Davies said the attack brings home the fact that Ukraine has the capacity to strike at significant scale at or around the Russian capital. He said there is no ongoing peace process to disrupt and that the attack is more likely to add to anxiety over Russia.