Russia launched a sustained missile and drone attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 100 in what the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, called “one of the most horrific attacks” on the Ukrainian capital since the full-scale war began in spring 2022.
Officials warned that the death toll from one of the deadliest Russian attacks on Kyiv this year could rise, as rescue operations continue.
At a nine-storey Soviet-era apartment block in the west of Kyiv, an apparent direct missile hit had led to part of the building collapsing, leaving a gaping hole and a pile of rubble in the middle of the block.
Thirty apartments were destroyed in the strike, said the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, surveying the scene. “There could be people under the rubble, and we can’t exclude that the number of dead may rise,” he said. It was not clear how many people had been inside the building when the missile hit and there were conflicting reports of death tolls.
As dawn broke, hundreds of rescue workers were attempting to clear the rubble at the site and rescue those stuck in neighbouring apartments. Shops and buildings within a radius of two blocks also suffered damage and smashed windows.
The interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said: “A ballistic missile had a direct hit on a nine-storey apartment building, a section is destroyed, and is destroyed right down to the basement because it was a direct hit.”
Wave after wave of drone attacks could be heard during the night, with the air raid siren active for several hours and thousands of Kyiv residents sheltering in metro stations. The sounds reverberated from buildings across the city as air defence units tried to fend off the attacks. As the city came back to life on Tuesday morning, there was a burning smell in the air of central Kyiv and a cloud of dark smoke hung over the outskirts.
“Kyiv has faced one of the most horrific attacks,” Zelenskyy wrote on Facebook. “Right now in Kyiv, efforts are under way to rescue people from under the rubble of an ordinary residential building – it’s still unclear how many remain trapped.”
Speaking at the G7 in Canada, the Ukrainian president said he had been kept in touch about the scale of the attack as he flew to the summit, where he had hoped to meet Donald Trump to make a direct appeal to the US president about the need to impose much deferred US sanctions on Russia.
As he met the G7 host, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, Zelenskyy made no direct reference to Trump’s decision to leave the summit a day early, so avoiding a meeting with the Ukrainian leader. But, looking downbeat, he said: “We need the help of our allies for our soldiers to stay strong until Russia is ready for peace negotiations.”
He stressed: “We are ready for an unconditional ceasefire.”
Some Ukrainian diplomats are privately furious at Trump’s snub, even saying they are not sure it is worth the Ukrainian president turning up to the Nato summit in The Hague next week. One official said: “It is an occupational hazard that Ukraine is a victim of events and Trump’s attention span. Putin knows that, which is why there may have been such a large attack last night. There had been all sorts of promises, including new arms deliveries being offered.”
Russia has launched almost nightly attacks on Ukraine over more than three years of full-scale war, but direct hits on Kyiv are rare, as the capital is well protected by air defence systems. Moscow has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks, partly in apparent revenge for an audacious Ukrainian drone operation that targeted long-range bombers stationed at bases deep inside Russia.
Overnight, Russian drone strikes also struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, the head of the regional administration.
US-led attempts to start a peace process have largely failed, with Russia ignoring Trump’s demands to agree to a full ceasefire before talks begin. Direct talks in Istanbul have produced little in the way of progress and there is no sign that Russia is willing to abandon its maximalist war aims.
Zelenskyy had been hoping that the G7 summit would represent a golden chance to apply collective western pressure on Trump to accept a cut in the oil cap from $60 a barrel to $45 in an effort to reduce Russian oil revenues. The oil price cap requiring complex enforcement was introduced by the G7 nations and it would need at least tacit US support to be reduced effectively.
In discussions on Monday at the summit, Trump expressed his reluctance to impose any further sanctions on Russia, saying Europeans should “do it first” and that “sanctions cost us a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars”.
Meanwhile, Russia is deepening its ties with North Korea, the secretive state that is emerging as one of Moscow’s main allies in its war on Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Sergei Shoigu, Putin’s top security adviser, made his third visit in as many months to Pyongyang, where he announced that North Korea would send thousands of construction workers to help rebuild Russia’s Kursk region.
The Russian state news agency, Tass, cited Shoigu as saying: “Chairman Kim Jong-un has decided to send 1,000 sappers to Russia to de-mine Russian territory, as well as 5,000 military construction workers to rebuild infrastructure facilities destroyed by the occupiers.”
North Korea has previously sent more than 10,000 troops to support Russian efforts to retake the Kursk region, parts of which had been seized by Ukrainian forces. It has also transferred conventional weapons to aid Moscow’s war effort, while western intelligence believes Pyongyang may be seeking Russian technological assistance to advance its nuclear weapons programme.
