Russia launched an intense barrage of ballistic missiles and drones overnight into Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding 30 civilians in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, authorities said.
The strikes follow a major Russian attack two days earlier that killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 50 others across Ukraine, as Moscow apparently looks to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defences.
The relentless cycle of attacks dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than 4-year-old attack on its neighbour.
A five-story residential building in the city’s Solomianskyi District was damaged by falling debris and a fire broke out.
Rescue workers evacuated 35 people from the upper floors of the building and two people died, with eight reported injured, including two children, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.
In the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, seven people were killed and another 14 injured after the attack caused fires and damage to houses, vehicles, an administrative and non-residential building, the emergency services said.
Elsewhere, emergency workers extinguished a fire in a non-residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district.
There was no additional information about earlier reports by the district mayor that people were trapped in another residential building.
Damage to commercial and residential buildings was reported in two other city districts.
Lithuania’s foreign minister said the country’s embassy in Kyiv was damaged when missiles struck nearby overnight.
Russia’s defense ministry said Saturday it had launched a “massive strike” against “Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities and logistics centers in Kyiv.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the United States and other Western partners over Ukraine’s need for more Patriot anti-ballistic missile defense systems to counter missile attacks from Russia.
“Every package of ballistic missile interceptors saves the lives of our people. And every night without them results in more casualties,” he wrote on X following the latest attacks.
