Kremlin rejects Zelensky's 60-day truce offer as strike near Kharkiv kills 3

The Kremlin rejected a proposal from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a 60-day ceasefire that would have allowed Ukraine to hold elections, Ukrainian news outlet Censor.net reported on Monday. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Zelensky had "not deserved" a truce, Ukrainian broadcaster 24 Kanal reported. The rejection came as the confirmed toll from a Russian missile strike near Kharkiv on Sunday stood at 3 killed and 25 injured, Ukrainian police said.

Moscow had signalled it would only observe a truce covering the day of a Ukrainian election, not the 60 days Zelensky proposed, Belgian newspaper La Libre reported. Romanian outlet Antena 3 CNN said President Vladimir Putin would order that Ukraine not be struck "only on election day," and Ukrainian outlet Euromaidan Press said Zelensky's offer of elections in exchange for a full 60-day ceasefire was met with that narrower counter-offer from Moscow.

At least 3 people were killed and 25 injured when the missile struck a residential area in Pisochyn, just outside Kharkiv, on Sunday evening, hours after US President Donald Trump said Russia and Ukraine had agreed an immediate ceasefire on energy targets. The dead were named as a 16-year-old boy and women aged 19 and 51; the injured included two girls aged 9 and 13. Ukraine's prosecutor general's office opened an investigation into the strike as a suspected war crime.

Russian forces also struck Kharkiv's Nemishlianskyi district with two guided bombs earlier the same day. Ukrainian officials initially said the strike killed 1 and injured at least 8, but regional governor Oleh Syniehubov later said it killed 3 and injured 9, a figure ECTV has not reconciled with the earlier count. A separate drone strike hit Ivano-Frankivsk; the Kyiv Independent reported 3 killed, while the city's mayor put the toll at 2.

The Financial Times reported, in accounts echoed by Meduza and the Kyiv Independent, that the United States had threatened to cut weapons deliveries and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine under the PURL arms-purchase programme unless Kyiv stopped striking Russian oil refineries. NATO said deliveries to Ukraine under PURL were still continuing, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing European Pravda.

Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia had violated the ceasefire immediately after it was announced and called for additional military aid packages for Ukraine, Ukraine's foreign ministry said. Zelensky said Ukraine's armed forces had received orders tied to upholding the truce, and told a security forum in Warsaw that Ukraine would respond this winter if Russia did not accept an energy ceasefire. Zelensky said Putin had answered every Ukrainian de-escalation proposal with refusal. Russia also struck Naftogaz gas-production facilities in the Kharkiv region, starting a fire that damaged important infrastructure, acting Naftogaz chief Serhiy Fedorenko said on Telegram, adding that staff were working to fix the damage quickly.

A US official told news site Axios the truce was meant to cover only oil refineries, not the wider power grid, and that Russia had not confirmed any terms. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Zelensky was acting out of hysteria. Trump renewed his calls for Ukrainian elections and repeated his threat to halt US arms and intelligence-sharing with Kyiv over its refinery strikes.

In an apparent tit-for-tat, Ukrainian drones attacked the Moscow area overnight, forcing the Russian capital's four main airports to briefly suspend flights. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defences shot down at least 23 drones before they reached the city. Separately, Russian and pro-Russian officials said Ukrainian drone strikes killed 2 people in Russian-held territory: one in Russia's Belgorod region, and another in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Donetsk region.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Zelensky that Ukraine would get a further package of military support worth around 3 billion euros as early as next week. EU foreign ministers also imposed a fresh sanctions package on Russia-linked people, companies and organisations on Monday, the largest such package yet, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said; German foreign minister Johann Wadephul called it an unprecedented blow to Russia's war economy.