A nine-storey block of flats in Kyiv has completely collapsed after a Russian missile strike, leaving rescuers digging through rubble for the missing as at least 25 people were killed in what the city’s mayor described as the “most massive attack” on the Ukrainian capital.
Overnight, Russian forces launched a major drone and missile barrage that hit locations across a wide area. Ukraine’s State Emergencies Service said 85 people were injured, including two children. Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said an ambulance station was among the places struck.
“At least 25 dead and 85 injured in overnight Russian attack on Kyiv, mayor says.”
Several neighbourhoods were evacuated hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia was preparing an attack. Moscow said its forces hit military plants in retaliation for strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Russia would “continue to increase pressure on the Kyiv regime in order to achieve our set goals”.
Ukraine accused Moscow of deliberately targeting civilian areas. Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said: “The enemy is once again deliberately targeting residential areas and killing civilians.”
On the city’s left bank, in the Darnitskyi district, two missiles devastated a high-rise block. The first left a giant crater next to a kindergarten, gutting surrounding buildings by fire, their metal balconies twisted. The second struck the end of a nine-storey building, which collapsed into a heap of concrete. A local told the BBC that several people were missing and may have been sheltering in the basement. Rescuers worked to dig through the rubble as relatives watched in tears.
Svitlana, who lives next to the building hit, said she hid in the corridor during the air raid and heard the explosions. “It wasn’t scary,” she shrugged, “because I’ve been through it all before.”
Kyiv’s metro authorities said 52,500 people, including 4,500 children, sheltered in underground stations overnight – the highest number in “recent years”. The BBC’s Eastern Europe correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, reporting from the site of the destroyed block, described the scene of smashed cars, shattered windows and a thick layer of grey ash coating everything and everyone.