Politics

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian capital for the second night in a row on October 22, injuring four people, officials said within hours of an announcement from Washington imposing sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said drones had damaged several dwellings and other buildings.

Air assaults the night before struck throughout the country, killing at seven people and causing power outages. One of the attacks hit a kindergarten in Kharkiv and another hit an apartment building in Zaporizhzhya.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Telegram that it struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets.

The US Treasury Department announced the sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil after the European Union unveiled a fresh wave of sanctions earlier on October 22. Both actions were aimed at pressuring Russia to end its full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

"Today is a very big day in terms of what we're doing. These are tremendous sanctions. These are very big -- against their two big oil companies. And we hope they won't be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled," US President Donald Trump said.

The move marks another shift for Trump, who has resisted putting more pressure on Russia in hopes that Russian President Vladimir Putin would agree to end the fighting. But his patience appeared to have run out after plans for a summit with Putin in Budapest collapsed.

"I just felt it was time," Trump told reporters at the White House after welcoming NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. "Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don't go anywhere."

In another indication that Trump's patience is wearing thing, the president said he had canceled the Budapest meeting.

"It didn't feel right to me. It didn't feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get," he said.