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Kyiv observes a day of mourning after 27 killed, 91 wounded and more than 130 buildings destroyed in deadliest strike
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Ukraine and Russia have vowed to escalate fighting hours after Moscow unleashed its deadliest bombardment on Kyiv, killing 27 people.
The attack left 91 injured and more than 130 buildings were destroyed. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces would “definitely” retaliate in response to the overnight attacks.
Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, announced a day of mourning in the capital for Friday. He said that damage was recorded across the city of about three million, with some buildings heavily damaged.
Moscow said the attacks were retaliation for Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia. The Kremlin said Russian military commanders had briefed president Vladimir Putin about the Russian attacks, adding that Moscow would increase pressure to achieve its war aims.
“In total, Russia launched more than 70 missiles of various types against Ukraine overnight, nearly half of them ballistic missiles, along with almost 500 attack drones, including jet-powered ‘shaheds’. The main strike was directed at Kyiv,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky blamed the destruction in part on a failure of allies to deliver promised air defences.
“If our partners had delivered on their promises in a timely manner, I think we could have saved more homes and lives today,” said Zelensky.
President Vladimir Putin has been briefed by his top military commander about a massive overnight Russian strike on Kyiv, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
The Russian military unleashed a massive 11-hour barrage on the Ukrainian capital overnight into Thursday morning that killed at least 27 people. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Kyiv since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Peskov added that Moscow would continue to increase pressure on Ukraine in order to achieve its goals.
In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Europe of escalating tensions, and said Russia was unable to turn a blind eye to such moves.
An industrial facility caught fire after Ukraine attacked the Russian city of Belgorod and its surrounding with missiles, Vesti news channel said, citing local officials.
Energy infrastructure was damaged and water and gas supplies were interrupted, Vesti added. A woman was killed in the attack, TASS news agency said separately, citing local officials.
Volodymyr Zelensky has blamed the destruction in part on a failure of allies to deliver promised air defences.
“If our partners had delivered on their promises in a timely manner, I think we could have saved more homes and lives today,” said Zelensky, who looked tired and frustrated.
“All we ask of our partners is simply to do what we’ve agreed on. We’re not even asking for more.”
Later, in his nightly video address, Zelensky said the issue of air defences would be “one of the key outcomes” of next week’s Nato summit in Turkey, as he repeated his call for the development of European air defences.
“If, of course, Nato still means anything to the allies,” he said.
“Europe must have its own sufficient capability to defend against all types of threats, including this one from Russian ballistic missiles,” Zelensky said.
At least 27 people were killed and 91 left injured after Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine’s capital Kyiv yesterday.
The strikes damaged around 130 buildings in the deadliest attack on the capital this year.
Multiple explosions shook central Kyiv and reverberated across the capital throughout the night as thousands of residents rushed to bomb shelters and underground metro stations. Huge columns of smoke filled the skyline.
The death toll climbed to 27 after an injured person died in hospital, and 91 were injured, the head of the capital’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said on Telegram.
Tkachenko had earlier warned that the toll was likely to rise as rescue teams worked through the night, sifting through rubble in search of trapped residents.
He said teams at one site in an eastern suburb on the capital’s left bank of the Dnipro River had recovered five bodies while eight residents were unaccounted for.
A senior Ukrainian defence official, Rustem Umerov, and president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have held talks in the past two days, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Speaking at one of the sites targeted in a devastating Russian attack on Kyiv as rescuers sifted through rubble, Zelensky said he still hoped Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff would visit Ukraine even though US-backed peace efforts to end the war have stalled for months.
Zelensky added that he hoped to have a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of a Nato summit in the Turkish capital Ankara next week.
A US official has said Donald Trump wants the war in Ukraine to end so the killings end, a US official said.
Trump “wants this war settled so the senseless killing ends”, the official said after 27 people were killed in Russian strikes on Kyiv.
The president “remains optimistic that we’ll ultimately get a peace deal done”, they said.
At least two people were killed and another eight injured in Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine, officials said on Telegram in the early hours of Friday.
In the bordering Sumy region, two were killed and one injured after Russian drones hit a private house, said Oleh Hryhorov, head of the regional military administration.
In the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, hometown of president Volodymyr Zelensky, seven people were injured after a Russian missile strike on the densely built urban area, said Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city’s defence council.
A day of mourning will be observed in Kyiv on Friday after nearly three dozen people were killed there on Thursday in the deadliest Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital this year.
German federal prosecutors has said that a Ukrainian national tied to the Nord Stream pipeline blasts has been charged with being an accomplice to a war crime, disruption of public services, causing an explosion and destroying structures.
Serhii K, as the suspect is known under German privacy rules, is suspected of acting on behalf of Ukrainian government entities, along with other military personnel, to destroy the pipelines in 2022.
Polish security services have detained a Belarusian citizen and a Polish citizen suspected of spying on Belarusian exiles on behalf of the Belarusian intelligence services, Polish security services said on Thursday.
“Men paid by Belarusian intelligence participated in events organized in Warsaw by the Belarusian minority, where they recorded and photographed participants,” the spokesperson, Jacek Dobrzynski, wrote on X.
“The collected materials – passed across the eastern border – were used by (President Alexander) Lukashenko’s services and regime propaganda.”
The two arrests were part of an ongoing case in which three Belarusians and two Ukrainians were already detained last November.
A court ordered the 19-year-old Belarusian citizen to be held for three months, while the Polish citizen, 44, was barred from leaving the country and placed under police supervision.
The Belarusian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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