Russia is planning to intensify ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities after concluding peace negotiations have collapsed, Bloomberg reported, citing people close to the Kremlin. Brent crude fell more than 3% before the report, and a US intelligence assessment cited separately suggests Moscow may also be weighing a limited strike on a NATO member.
Russia is actively planning to intensify ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv's city centre after concluding that peace negotiations have reached a dead end, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing three people close to the Kremlin. Four people close to the Kremlin said Moscow sees few alternatives to further escalation in the absence of diplomacy, and that the current phase of hostilities is not the peak of military escalation. Moscow is also weighing intensified conventional ballistic missile attacks on infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities, not only Kyiv.
Energy markets price in the risk
Brent crude traded around $88.58 as of Tuesday's settle, after falling more than 3% that session as traders discounted Iran-related supply risk. A fresh Russian escalation targeting Ukrainian and potentially NATO-adjacent infrastructure adds independent upward pressure that could reverse that decline. Shares of Lockheed Martin edged higher, while shares of Ukrainian communications company Kyivstar Group declined following the headline.
Putin signals a response as diplomacy stalls
Putin told a state television journalist on August 22 that Ukraine had made a grave miscalculation by striking Russian economic targets, saying Moscow would "expect a response targeting your most sensitive economic sectors." Ukraine has escalated drone strikes on Russian economic infrastructure this summer, including oil refineries and logistics networks, and Russia's Perm refinery, the country's seventh-largest by volume, halted operations after an August 21 drone attack.
Diplomacy has produced no breakthrough. Geneva negotiations mediated by the US in February ended without a result, and the Kremlin said in July there was no immediate prospect of resuming formal talks. The Alaska summit between Putin and Trump last August, and subsequent Rubio-Lavrov meetings in the Philippines in July, both stalled, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said afterward that new approaches were needed, without elaborating.
NATO risk and a nuclear warning
The same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a surprise visit to Moscow, his first publicly known trip to the Russian capital; Ratcliffe met Russian intelligence counterparts but not Putin. Trump described the visit as semi-routine, saying he was working hard to end the war.
Bloomberg's sources said Moscow increasingly views Ukrainian strikes as attacks by NATO states, given that alliance members supply Kyiv with weapons and intelligence. The Atlantic Council, citing a US intelligence assessment, reported on August 21 that the Kremlin may be preparing a limited attack on a NATO member country within months in an apparent bid to discredit the alliance. Bloomberg's sources said the escalating spiral of strikes is leading a growing number of Russian officials to conclude that Putin could eventually opt to use tactical nuclear weapons as a last resort in Ukraine.
Source: Investing.com
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