World News
Putin orders a 72 hour pause on strikes against Kyiv as two American envoys reach Moscow
By Staff Writer | 6 September 2026
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner landed in Moscow on Saturday and are expected in Kyiv on Sunday. The pause was announced hours after an overnight barrage that struck two airports serving the Ukrainian capital and killed five people at an industrial site in the south.
Two American envoys arrived in Moscow on Saturday 5 September to restart talks on ending the war in Ukraine, and by the end of the day the Kremlin had announced a 72 hour pause in strikes on Kyiv beginning at midnight. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, attributed the decision to President Vladimir Putin and tied it to the presence of the visitors. He said the two would meet the president, and that there was no talk of new ideas for ending the war.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner last visited Moscow in January, when they met President Putin in the Kremlin. Neither has been to Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expected them in the Ukrainian capital on Sunday, and that they would be in Moscow beforehand.
The night before the pause
The pause arrived after the airports it was meant to protect had already been hit. Ukraine's air force said Russia launched ballistic missiles from its Rostov and Voronezh regions overnight along with 167 attack drones, about half of them jet powered, and that air defences shot down or suppressed 128 of them. Strikes hit the two international airports serving Kyiv. In the Boryspil district a fire started by a strike partly destroyed a nine storey residential building, and two people were wounded elsewhere in the Kyiv region, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration.
Clearly, these Russian strikes on the airports are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility of the U.S. side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine
President Zelenskyy had said on Friday that Ukraine would halt its own air attacks for the duration of the visit and asked Moscow to do the same. Moscow did not answer that proposal in public. He added that Ukraine would adjust its operations over Russian airspace in the coming week, and that there would be no threat to the diplomacy from the Ukrainian side.
Five killed at an industrial site
In the southern Dnipropetrovsk region, five people were killed and five more wounded at an industrial facility. Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said those killed were employees at the site.
A locksmith, an electrician, a plumber and a machinist. People of peaceful professions. They were simply working their shift. They were doing their job when enemy missiles cut off their lives.
Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration
Russia's Ministry of Defence said in a statement on Saturday that it had carried out strikes on two metallurgical plants in the region, which it described as major suppliers of metal products for Ukraine's military production. That is the ministry's own account of the targets, and it is set out here as such. The same statement said Russian forces had shot down 53 Ukrainian drones overnight. In Russia's border region of Belgorod, local officials said three people had been wounded, including a girl of 14, by Ukrainian attacks.
The front line runs for about 1,250 kilometres and has moved little. The air war has intensified in its place, which is why airports, substations, plants and apartment blocks now appear in the daily reporting more often than positions do.
A pause counted in hours, announced after the airports were struck and timed to a visit, is not a ceasefire. It is a window. What matters is what the envoys put on the table in Kyiv on Sunday, and whether anything is still standing when the 72 hours run out.