Ukraine war briefing: rescuers comb through rubble after Russian attack kills at least 26

A Russian drone and missile attack in western Ukraine, has killed at least 26 people, including three children, amid reports that a new US- and Russian-drafted peace proposal would see Kyiv ceding land and slashing the size of its military. Many more people were listed as missing and nearly 100 had been hurt in the overnight strike that hit apartment buildings in the city of Ternopil, Ukrainian interior minister Ihor Klymenko said on Wednesday. Russia fired 476 drones and 48 missiles at Ukraine, striking energy and transport infrastructure and forcing emergency power cuts in a number of regions in frigid temperatures. The upper floors of a residential building in Ternopil were torn away in the attack. Klymenko said on Telegram that said emergency crews were working through the night, combing the site. “The main thing is to find those who could still be under the rubble … Flames flared up instantly and engulfed the building in a wave. People were terrified and tried to jump out of windows.”

US and Russian officials have quietly drafted a new plan to end the Ukraine war that would require Kyiv to surrender territory and severely limit the size of its military, it was reported on Wednesday. The draft plan – which was reportedly developed by Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev – would force draconian measures on Ukraine that would give Russia unprecedented control over the country’s military and political sovereignty, write Luke Harding, Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth. It was unclear whether the Trump administration had formally backed the proposal, which according to the reports would require Ukraine to cede territory it controls in the east of the country and halve the size of its military. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has previously called those conditions non-starters.
Zelenskyy travelled for talks in Turkey intended to help revive peace negotiations with Russia, after his short tour to European capitals. The Ukrainian president urged allies to increase pressure on Moscow to end the war, including by providing Kyiv with more air-defence missiles. “Every brazen attack against ordinary life shows that the pressure on Russia is insufficient,” he said on X. “Effective sanctions and assistance to Ukraine can change this.”
Energy infrastructure was hit in seven Ukrainian regions in Russia’s overnight attacks, officials said. Restrictions were placed on power usage for consumers across the country. A Reuters witness in the western city of Lviv reported hearing explosions and the north-western city of Kharkiv came under fire. Residents took cover in metro stations in Kyiv.
Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, has described last weekend’s sabotage attack on Poland’s rail system as “an act of state terrorism” ordered by Russia, as he announced that Poland was closing the last remaining Russian consulate in the country. “The clear intention was to cause human casualties,” he said of the weekend bomb attack. Shaun Walker and Jakub Krupa also report that the Polish security services said they were in the process of arresting several people linked to the incident.
Italy’s top court has approved the handover to Germany of a Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, his lawyer said on Wednesday. The suspect, identified only as Serhii K under German privacy laws, has been fighting attempts to transfer him to Germany since he was detained on a European arrest warrant in the Italian town of Rimini in August over the explosions, which largely severed Russian gas transit to Europe. The decision by the court of cassation in Rome means the suspect will be transferred to the German authorities in the next few days.