Russia launches deadly missile and drone attacks on Kyiv

Russia struck Ukraine’s Kyiv region with ballistic missiles on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens, authorities said, on the eve of a Nato summit in Turkey.

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

Seven people were killed in Kyiv, and one in Bucha district northwest of the capital, authorities said, while at least 34 were wounded in Kyiv and its surrounding areas.

Missiles and ⁠drones struck apartment ⁠blocks and other ⁠buildings on Monday, ​Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv region’s military administration, said.

“The enemy is striking with ballistic missiles,” Tkachenko said on Telegram.

Klitschko said air defences were in operation and urged people to remain in shelters.

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

The assault was the second on the capital and its surroundings in less than a week and came as both sides increased long-range attacks, underlining the growing reach of the war more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

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.

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.

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said on state-backed messaging app Max that several waves of drones bound for the Russian capital were shot down by Russian air defences.

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