At least 14 killed as Russian drones and missiles strike Kyiv on eve of Nato summit

A wave of Russian missiles and drones has struck Kyiv on the eve of a Nato summit in Turkey, killing more than a dozen people and heavily damaging apartment blocks and other buildings.

“In total, 14 people have died and 117 have been injured in Kyiv,” the office of the attorney general said on Monday morning.

Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv region’s military administration, said: “Sadly, this is not the final toll. Rescue operations are still ongoing.” Dozens of people were hospitalised, including several children, he added.

The Russian Defence ‌Ministry confirmed it ⁠used long-range weapons ‌and drones to carry out a “massive” attack on Kyiv and other ⁠locations. In a Telegram post, the ministry said it had hit military and energy facilities in Kyiv ⁠and the surrounding area, as well as military airfields in several other regions.

The onslaught began shortly after 1am and lasted for hours, striking at least 15 multi-storey residential buildings. “These are … places where people slept and lived their ordinary lives,” Tkachenko said.

In the historic Podilskyi district, four residential buildings were hit and a nine-storey block was largely destroyed from the fifth floor up, leaving survivors trapped. On Monday morning, rescuers used a ladder truck to reach them as firefighters continued to battle lingering flames.

From the sidelines of the rescue operation, Alyona, 22, told Reuters she was waiting for news about her friend Vika. “We’re sitting here and waiting until they retrieve them … She’s so kind, only 19 years old. She’s such a kind girl,” she said, holding back tears.

Across the city, rescuers continued to comb through rubble, including among the remains of a 21-storey residential block in Podilskyi, where they searched for survivors.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said rescue crews were continuing to remove residents from devastated buildings.

Kyiv residents battle flames after a Russian aerial assault.

The overnight barrage came days after at least 31 people were killed in Russian strikes on the capital in the early hours of Thursday – the deadliest ‌assault on the city this year – as both sides intensified their long-range attacks.

The US president, Donald Trump, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are expected to discuss the war on the sidelines of a Nato summit in the Turkish capital, Ankara, which begins on Tuesday.

After the attack, Zelenskyy called for “strong decisions” from the Nato summit. “The USA and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” he said.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia had used 68 missiles, including 23 ballistic and six super and hypersonic weapons, as well as 351 drones ‌in the attack. Air-force units shot ‌down or neutralised 37 missiles and 326 drones but none of the ballistic, supersonic or hypersonic missiles.

A firefighter tackles a blaze that engulfed a residential building in Kyiv.

Ukraine has repeatedly said it ‌is short of interceptors for its Patriot defence system, the only effective weapon to shoot down ballistic projectiles.

In Russian-annexed Crimea, its governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, wrote on Telegram: “Following an enemy attack on energy infrastructure near Sevastopol, our city was temporarily left without electricity.”

In recent weeks, Ukraine has increasingly targeted energy facilities inside Russia and, in particular, Moscow-controlled territory in an effort to weaken the Kremlin’s war effort.

Zelenskyy said on Sunday that troops were continuing to fight for the strategic eastern town of Kostyantynivka, a gateway to strategically important Ukrainian positions in the Donetsk region.

On Friday, Moscow said it had taken the outpost. However, Kyiv dismissed the announcement as a “lie”, saying that it was defending the town.

“Fighting is also continuing for Kostyantynivka, which [the Russian president 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

The Guardian wp:paragraph