European leaders have accused Vladimir Putin of undermining peace talks, after Russian missile strikes on Kyiv this week killed at least 23 people and damaged diplomatic buildings, including EU and British Council offices.
A day of mourning was observed in Kyiv on Friday, after the Russian air attack the day before that killed 23 people, including at least four children. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said eight people were still missing and 53 had been injured. “When instead of diplomacy, Russia chooses ballistics … the world must respond accordingly,” he said, urging western allies to impose further sanctions.
Separately, the Ukrainian leader said Russia was massing a force of 100,000 troops near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. “There is a buildup and concentration of the enemy there. Up to 100,000 – that’s what we have as of this morning. They are preparing offensive actions,” Zelenskyy said.
Europe’s high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, responding to the attacks on Kyiv, issued a statement accusing Russia of disregard for international law and of undermining peace efforts.
“Intentional attacks against civilians and non-military objectives are war crimes,” he said. “These crimes only reinforce our determination and resolve to support Ukraine and its people in their defence against Russia and their pursuit of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.”
The statement was endorsed by the UK and all EU member states except Hungary, which is led by Putin’s ally Viktor Orbán, who has long denigrated Ukraine and sought to block EU aid to the country.
The latest attacks on the Ukrainian capital were the deadliest since Donald Trump met Putin in Alaska for an inconclusive summit, where he laid out the red carpet for the Russian leader, who has been indicted for war crimes.
Trump has indicated he wants a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, but while the Ukrainian leader has shown his readiness, the Kremlin has held back.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Putin would have “played” Trump if he refused to meet Zelenskyy. After Macron hosted the German leader, Friedrich Merz, in the south of France, France and Germany pledged to increase air defence to Ukraine.
In a joint statement, the key EU countries said: “Despite intensive international diplomatic efforts, Russia shows no intention to end its war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Kallas said the latest attacks showed “that Putin is just mocking any kind of peace efforts that are made. So what we have to do is increase pressure on Russia and this is really what they understand.”
After the deadly strike in the early hours of Thursday morning, the EU has vowed to introduce a further round of sanctions against Russia – the 19th since the full-scale invasion began in 2022 – increase military aid for Ukraine, and discuss seizing €210bn of Russian assets frozen in the bloc.
Lithuania’s defence minister, Dovilė Šakalienė, said hopes of peace negotiations were “at least naive” and Putin was “cheaply buying time to kill more people”. She praised efforts to secure peace, saying that “nobody [had] thought of anything better than [what] Washington is doing”.
Colm McGivern, the director of the British Council in Ukraine, said Thursday’s airstrikes had injured a security guard and made the cultural organisation’s Kyiv headquarters “unusable”.
While there is no evidence the council was deliberately targeted, McGivern said, “what I do know is that Russia has targeted educational and cultural infrastructure in Ukraine repeatedly”.
A neighbouring building in the city centre was struck at 5.40am and the blast-wave from the explosion blew out the British Council’s windows, destroyed its ceilings and wrecked its computers, the director said.
McGivern said that the 120 staff of the unit, 119 of whom are Ukrainian, had vowed to continue with the British Council’s cultural activities. “It was another night where Ukraine has been subject to a barbaric attack,” McGivern said. “There is a palpable level of anger, and colleagues are more determined than ever to do all they can, to act on the things they can control, which is strengthen the relationship with the UK.”
EU defence ministers meeting in Copenhagen discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, amid US pressure on European allies to shoulder more responsibility for the security of the continent.
Kallas wants to reorganise an EU troop-training mission so Ukrainian soldiers could receive instruction inside Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire. The EU has said about 80,000 Ukrainian troops have taken part in the training programme since 2022.
The latest Russian attacks have intensified calls to use Russia’s frozen assets in Europe as leverage over Putin and to help Ukraine in its defence.
Šakalienė expressed support for seizing Russia’s frozen assets and giving them to Ukraine, saying they would be “extremely helpful” for Ukraine’s defence industry and “very good motivation for Putin to sit at the negotiations table”.
The EU has an agreement to use the windfall profits on Russian assets for Ukraine but has balked at seizing the capital, which is mostly held at Euroclear in Belgium, fearing weakening investor confidence in eurozone financial institutions.
EU foreign ministers are to discuss using Russia’s frozen assets at a separate meeting with Kallas on Saturday.
After the attacks on Thursday, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said that the EU was “advancing the work on the Russian frozen assets to contribute to Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction”. A spokesperson later said she was referring to use of the profits, which have generated €9bn in funds for Ukraine in 2025, rather than the assets.
