Deadly Russian Missile Attack Hits Homes Across Kyiv, 12 Killed

A fire broke out and the upper floors of a nine-storey residential block were destroyed in the city’s Solomianskyi district, where seven people were killed, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, calling for Friday to be observed as a day of mourning.

Two other districts also suffered damage, Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app, with non-residential facilities, warehouses, a school and a children’s hospital hit.

Power company DTEK said it restored electricity to more than half of the roughly 90,000 homes left without power in the capital following the attack.

Russia has stepped up air attacks on Ukraine in recent months, trying to exploit its smaller neighbour’s critical shortage of interceptors to down ballistic missiles.

The Russian defence ministry said Moscow attacked Kyiv and the surrounding region with airstrikes and drones, hitting facilities producing drone components, a military depot and a logistics hub, as well as other targets.

A Reuters witness reported hearing more than a dozen explosions. In the region around the Ukrainian capital, another person was killed, an official said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s emergency service showed video of servicemen battling a blaze in a building and helping people to escape facilities destroyed during the night in Kyiv.

Attacks continue as ceasefire efforts stall

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged attacks almost daily since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and diplomatic efforts involving the United States and Europe have so far failed to bring a lasting ceasefire.

Poland, a NATO and European Union member bordering Ukraine, has started defensive air operations to protect its airspace, its military said in a post on X.

Ukraine had handed proposals to U.S. negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, for a plan to end the war, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this month, and he has also repeatedly asked for interceptor missiles to ward off missile attacks.

Russia did not receive specific proposals for possible new meetings with U.S. negotiators, Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, told the Izvestia newspaper, but said Moscow would be ready to arrange a meeting at short notice.

Witkoff and Kushner were last in Moscow last January and have not yet visited Kyiv.