Russian strikes kill at least six in Ukraine as Zelensky proposes meeting Putin at Miami G20

Overnight strikes across Ukrainian regions

Russian missile and drone strikes hit targets across ten Ukrainian regions on the night of 11 to 12 September 2026, marking day 1,662 of the war. Ukrainian authorities and local officials reported between four and six fatalities alongside dozens of injuries from the overnight bombardments. In the central city of Kryvyi Rih, a Russian missile struck an ArcelorMittal industrial facility, killing two workers and damaging production and auxiliary infrastructure. In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, an overnight strike demolished a private house, killing two residents. Lioudmila, a 56-year-old local resident in Zaporizhzhia, described the strike as absolute terror. In Zviahel, located in the Zhytomyr region west of Kyiv, regional governor Vitaliy Bunechko stated that a strike on a grocery store killed two people. In the southern port city of Odesa, missile and drone attacks destroyed entire floors of residential buildings, injuring between 35 and 37 people, including a five-month-old infant, according to regional governor Oleg Kiper. A separate strike on a hotel in nearby Chornomorsk injured 11 people.

Industrial damage and Ukrainian responses

The strike on the steelworks prompted a formal statement from ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih on Telegram, confirming that emergency crews recovered a second body from the rubble of the damaged production units.

We emphasize that our plant is a civilian facility of the mining and metallurgical industry, and we strongly condemn these insidious enemy attacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the overnight wave of attacks on social media, expressing frustration with the response from Western partners four and a half years after the invasion began.

Our cities and communities have been under attack almost without pause since last night. When Russians make ordinary people targets of their terrorist attacks so openly, it is frustrating to see that the reaction of the world's major powers is not matching Russia's level of escalation.

Ukraine responded by intensifying its own long-range strikes against Russian industrial and logistics infrastructure, which Kyiv frames as justified retaliation. On 12 September, Zelensky confirmed that Ukrainian strikes targeted chemical enterprises in the Perm region of the Urals and in the central Samara region, following earlier operations aimed at Russian oil refineries and supply depots.

G20 proposal and diplomatic maneuvers

In the wake of the bombardments, Zelensky announced his readiness to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in person during the Group of 20 summit in Miami in December 2026. The Ukrainian president stated that concrete diplomatic results were more important than preliminary conditions or rhetoric.

It is not words that matter. What I will tell him or what he wants to tell me does not matter. Only the result counts.

The Kremlin responded on Saturday that no decision has been made regarding Putin's attendance at the Miami meeting. The United States holds the G20 presidency this year and has attempted to revive stalled peace talks between the two nations. US diplomatic envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Moscow and Kyiv on the weekend of 5 and 6 September to conduct preliminary discussions with government officials in both capitals.

Sanctions appeals and technical meetings

US-mediated diplomatic efforts have not yet produced a negotiated settlement or ceasefire. On 11 September, Zelensky appealed directly to US President Donald Trump, urging the immediate implementation of severe sanctions designed to disrupt Russia's domestic missile production capacity. At the same time, Russian officials continue to participate in selective multilateral meetings hosted on American soil. In early September, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov attended a G20 ministerial gathering in North Carolina, which caused unease among Ukraine's European allies. Russian diplomats confirmed on Saturday that Moscow will also send delegates to a G20 energy summit in Houston scheduled for the third week of September.