Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv kills 10, dozens wounded

Ukraine’s interior ministry said on Tuesday that 10 people were killed in a Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv, revising down an earlier toll of 16. “During search and rescue operations, body parts may be found that are initially recorded as separate fatalities,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said in a statement explaining the new death toll. He warned that there were “still people under the rubble” and that rescue operations were continuing. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 99 people were also injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-storey residential building, destroying dozens of flats. Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, calling the Kyiv attack “one of the most terrifying strikes” on the capital. Russia “launched a group strike with high-precision air, ground and sea-based weapons, as well as strike drones on military-industrial facilities in the Kyiv region,” Moscow’s defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Kyiv in recent months and came after two rounds of direct peace talks failed to make progress on ending the war, now in its fourth year. Russia has repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine with missiles and drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. Russia says it only attacks military targets. Russia has in recent months stepped up its aerial attacks. It launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine on June 10 in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the war. Russia also pounded Kyiv on April 24, killing at least 12 people in its deadliest assault on the capital in eight months. The intensified long-range attacks have coincided with a Russian summer offensive on eastern and northeastern sections of the roughly 1,000km (620-mile) front line, where Ukraine is short-handed and needs more military support from its Western partners. Uncertainty about US policy on the war has fuelled doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on. Zelensky was set to meet US President Donald Trump in Canada on Tuesday and press him for more help, but the White House announced Trump would return early to Washington on Monday night because of tensions in the Middle East. Ukrainian forces have hit back with their own domestically produced long-range drones. The Russian military said it downed 203 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported briefly halting flights overnight in and out of all four Moscow airports, as well as the airports in the cities of Kaluga, Tambov and Nizhny Novgorod, as a precaution. The overnight Russian drone strikes, meanwhile, also struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the regional administration. Russian President Vladimir Putin “is doing this simply because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it,” Zelensky said. The almost nine-hour Russian attack delivered “direct hits on residential buildings,” the Kyiv City Military Administration said in a statement. “Rockets - from the upper floors to the basement,” it said. A US citizen died in the attack after suffering shrapnel wounds, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters. Thirty flats were destroyed in a single residential block after it was struck by a ballistic missile, Klymenko said. “We have 27 locations that were attacked by the enemy. We currently have over 2,000 people working there, rescuers, police, municipal services and doctors,” he told reporters at the scene of one of the attacks. Olena Lapyshniak, 49, was shaken by the strike that nearly levelled her building. She heard a whistling sound and then two explosions that blew out her windows and doors. “It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life,” she said. “There’s no military infrastructure here, nothing here, nothing. It’s horrible when people just die at night.” People were wounded in the city’s Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts. Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said fires broke out in two other city districts as a result of falling debris from drones shot down by Ukrainian air defences. Moscow escalated attacks after Ukraine’s Security Service agency staged an audacious operation targeting warplanes in airbases deep inside Russian territory. Additional reporting by Agence France Presse

Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv kills 10, dozens wounded

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The almost nine-hour attack was the latest in a spate of Russian aerial assaults on the Ukrainian capital

The almost nine-hour attack was the latest in a spate of Russian aerial assaults on the Ukrainian capital