US president Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday before travelling to Kyiv for talks with Zelensky on Sunday.

The pair will meet Putin at the Kremlin before their planned Kyiv visit, reported Axios, citing US officials. The trip would be their first to Ukraine since Trump returned to office.

The visit comes after months of stalled US-mediated negotiations, as talks between Russia and Ukraine were paused in February after the Iran war began, while Putin has rejected several proposals for a three-way summit with Trump and Zelensky.

Zelensky confirmed the planned meetings, saying: “It is important that America remain actively engaged. We are ready to meet with them in Ukraine – properly and substantively.”

Russia has continued to insist on territorial concessions from Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has described Moscow’s position on territory and NATO membership as “unshakeable”.

Ukraine’s security service headquarters was set alight after a Russian drone struck it ahead of diplomatic talks with US officials on ending the war.

Smoke could be seen above the SBU headquarters in Kyiv on Friday after a drone targeted the office of the acting head of the security service, Oleksandr Poklad, who was unscathed following the attack.

A World Health Organization warehouse storing humanitarian medical supplies was destroyed in an air attack in Kyiv Oblast early on Thursday, with the UN agency warning of a growing pattern of attacks on facilities supporting Ukraine’s healthcare system.

“Access to the site remains restricted due to heavy smoke and safety concerns, while assessments of possible damage and stock losses are ongoing. No WHO personnel were affected,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told Reuters.

The WHO said the strike was the third attack affecting one of its warehouses in Ukraine in three months. A warehouse in Dnipro was destroyed in August, destroying half the medical supplies and equipment intended for about 225,000 people in frontline and hard-to-reach areas.

According to the WHO, at least 20 attacks have affected humanitarian-supply warehouses across Ukraine this year, including 15 involving facilities storing health-related supplies.

Air Tanzania briefly suspended its Dar es Salaam-Moscow service on Friday, citing safety concerns amid a surge in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia.

The airline said the decision, which had been due to affect flights from Friday, followed “a routine risk assessment of the operating environment along the route”. This came after an Air Tanzania flight from Zanzibar to Moscow was diverted to St Petersburg on 3 September because of an airspace closure around Moscow.

However, the airline reversed the suspension within hours, saying flights would resume on 7 September.

Two major Russian oil facilities have halted operations following Ukrainian strikes, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Friday.

Lukoil’s NORSI refinery in Kstovo, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, was forced to stop operating after a Ukrainian drone strike on 26 August. The refinery is around 800km from the Ukrainian border and is Russia’s fourth-largest oil refinery.

The General Staff also said the Novatek-Ust-Luga complex in the Leningrad region had suspended operations after a strike earlier this week. It said pipelines, a gas-condensate processing unit, and two hydrocracking columns were damaged, with oil-product spills and a fire also reported.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are heading to Moscow and Kyiv in a fresh attempt by Donald Trump’s administration to revive efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump told reporters on Friday: “We have an idea for peace”, adding that Witkoff and Kushner were being sent to see “whether or not we can get something done” and that “there may be a good chance that we’ll do it”.

The pair are expected to visit Moscow first before travelling to Kyiv on Sunday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed. It will be their first visit to Ukraine, while Witkoff has travelled to Moscow several times.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has proposed a temporary halt to airstrikes while US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visit Moscow and Kyiv, saying Ukraine will not launch attacks during the diplomatic mission.

“There will be no air strikes from our side, and Russia must do the same, ensuring there are no air strikes from its side for the time needed to hold these talks and handle the logistical matters related to this American visit,” Zelensky said in his evening address on Friday.

Zelensky said the envoys would travel to Moscow before heading to Kyiv on Sunday.

Russian drones struck Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight, with at least two people injured despite a reported ceasefire.

Two women were hurt and taken to hospital in Boryspil, around 29km east of Kyiv, according to regional authorities, reported the Kyiv Independent. A nine-storey residential building was also damaged, with its roof and top floor catching fire.

The attacks continued into the early hours of Saturday after the ceasefire was said to have begun ahead of US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s visit to Ukraine and Russia.

Air-raid warnings were issued repeatedly across Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast through the night, while explosions were reported in the capital. Russian drones and glide bombs also targeted several other Ukrainian cities and frontline areas.