# Russia Fired the War's Largest Aerial Barrage at Ukraine Inside the Pause Putin Announced for Trump's Envoys

Ukraine's air force says 810 drones and 13 missiles hit 33 locations overnight, killing at least five people, within the three-day halt on strikes on Kyiv that Putin ordered while Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner carried an American peace plan to Moscow and then Kyiv.

- Published: 2026-09-06T05:26:19.861Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/2026-09-06/putin-met-trump-s-envoys-in-moscow-as-both-sides-paused-stri
- Publisher: Polylog (Global desk)
- Section: geopolitics
- Sources: [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/world/europe/russia-ukraine-witkoff-kushner-moscow.html), [TASS](https://tass.com/world/2183285), [Jiji Press (Japanese)](https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2026090600088&g=int)

Russia launched 810 Shahed-type attack drones and 13 missiles at Ukraine overnight on September 6 and 7, the largest combined aerial attack of the war, according to Ukraine's air force. Air defenses [intercepted 751 of the 823 incoming drones and missiles](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/drone-record-russia-launches-over-053000941.html), the air force said, while nine missiles and 54 drones struck 33 locations across Kyiv and 12 regions. Ukrainian officials put the toll at five civilians killed and 41 injured. The strike package included nine cruise missiles and four ballistic missiles. The previous high was 741 drones and missiles in a single night in July 2025, [which wire services also recorded as a record at the time](https://abcnews.com/International/russian-drone-missile-attacks-ukraine-set-new-record/story?id=126068632).

The barrage fell inside the window Putin himself set. Ahead of receiving Steve Witkoff, a businessman acting as President Donald Trump's envoy, and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, at the Kremlin on Friday, Putin ordered his military not to strike Kyiv for three days from midnight on Saturday, [The New York Times reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/world/europe/russia-ukraine-witkoff-kushner-moscow.html). Ukraine said it would hold off on strikes against Moscow over the same period and expected Russia to reciprocate. Moscow has not publicly reconciled the overnight attack with the halt Putin announced, and Russia's Defense Ministry describes its long-range strikes as directed at military and defense-industrial targets.

The talks that produced the pause ended without an agreement. [Jiji Press reported](https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2026090600088&g=int) that the envoys delivered the American peace plan, that Putin repeated his demand for the removal of what he describes as the root causes of the conflict, and that the plan could be made public within weeks. Russian state agency [TASS tracked the envoys' aircraft](https://tass.com/world/2183285) landing at Rzeszow in southeastern Poland at 1:31 a.m. local time on their way from Moscow to Kyiv. American reporting described a meeting lasting about five hours.

Earlier rounds of envoy diplomacy produced short, reciprocal pauses in long-range strikes and a restatement of incompatible positions on territory and on Ukraine's security guarantees. What changed overnight is that the pause itself did not hold, and it failed in the direction of escalation rather than restraint. That matters for the format Washington has chosen. The Trump administration is negotiating directly with Moscow through private emissaries rather than through the alliance structures that handled earlier rounds, and European governments learn the contents of the plan when it reaches Kyiv. A channel built on personal assurances between two capitals has no mechanism to verify or enforce them, and the first test of one produced the heaviest night of the war.

## What this means

A durable pause would compress the risk premium in European gas, grain and defense-linked equities, while a collapse of the talks returns the strike exchange to refineries, ports and power grids that markets already price. European governments are exposed twice over, through the budget support they have promised Kyiv and through terms they do not control. The near-term read is binary: publication of the plan with Ukrainian and European buy-in points to a longer ceasefire, while a resumption of capital-city strikes after the three-day window points to another season of attrition.

## What to watch

- Whether Trump, Witkoff or Kushner publicly acknowledge the strike as a breach of the halt Putin announced. Silence would signal Washington is willing to absorb the contradiction to keep the channel open, while a public rebuke would signal the plan is already in trouble.
- Whether the American peace plan is still released within the few weeks Jiji Press reported. A delay or a quiet withdrawal would indicate the Kremlin meeting produced less than either side implied.
- Whether Ukraine resumes long-range strikes on Moscow and Russian refineries now that its side of the reciprocal pause has lapsed. A rapid resumption would end the argument that pauses can be built on unwritten assurances.
- Whether European governments and the United States move new air-defense interceptors to Ukraine. Interception rates hold only if supply keeps pace with barrages of this size, and a visible resupply push would show how European capitals read the odds of a settlement.