Russia launches deadly missile and drone attacks on Kyiv

Russian missiles and drones ⁠struck Kyiv early on Monday, killing at least nine people and heavily damaging apartment blocks and other buildings, officials said, just a few days after ⁠the deadliest assault ⁠on the Ukrainian capital ​this year.

“Nine deaths and 46 wounded have now been confirmed as a result of the Russian attack (including five wounded children),” Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv region’s military administration, said. “Sadly, this is not the final toll. Rescue operations are still ongoing.”

Another person was killed in the Bucha district northwest of the capital, authorities said.

The Russian Defence ‌Ministry confirmed it ⁠conducted a “massive” attack on ​Kyiv and other ⁠locations using long-range weapons ‌and drones.

In a Telegram post on Monday, the ministry claimed it had hit ​military and energy facilities in Kyiv ⁠and its surrounds, as ​well ​as military airfields ​in several other Ukrainian regions.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said rescue crews were pulling residents from buildings ⁠shattered by the overnight barrage.

At least 15 residential buildings had been damaged or destroyed in the ​attack, including a nine-storey block in ‌the historic Podilskyi district, emergency services ‌said.

Rescuers used a ladder truck to get to people trapped on the upper floors of that ‌building, which had been largely destroyed, they said.

Rescuers were also looking for residents in a 21-storey residential block in the district. Tkachenko said four residential buildings had been struck in the Podilskyi district alone.

The new attack came days after at least 27 people were killed in a Russian attack on the capital in the early hours of Thursday – the deadliest ‌strike on the city this year – and as both sides increase long-range attacks.

US president Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy are expected to discuss the war on the sidelines of a Nato summit in the Turkish capital Ankara, which begins Tuesday.

In Russian-annexed Crimea, its governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said a Ukrainian strike near Sevastopol had temporarily cut electricity supplies.

“Following an enemy attack on energy infrastructure near Sevastopol, our city was temporarily left without electricity,” Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted energy facilities inside Russia and, in particular, Moscow-controlled territory in recent weeks in an effort to weaken the Kremlin’s war effort.

Zelenskyy said on Sunday that troops were continuing to fight for the strategic eastern town of Kostyantynivka, a gateway to key Ukrainian positions in the Donetsk region.

Moscow said Friday it had taken the outpost, but Kyiv dismissed the announcement as a “lie”, saying that it was defending the town.

“Fighting is also continuing for Kostyantynivka, which (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin has already claimed as his own, but it is obvious that he will never dare to appear there,” Zelenskyy said in his daily evening address.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse