Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
At least 14 people were killed and 99 were injured overnight in one of Russia’s deadliest aerial attacks on Kyiv of the war so far, authorities in the Ukrainian capital said on Tuesday morning.
According to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, Russia targeted 27 locations across the city, including “residential buildings, educational institutions and critical infrastructure facilities”.
Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said Russia attacked the city with 175 drones, at least 14 cruise missiles and two ballistic missiles.
At least 59 of those injured had been hospitalised, Tkachenko said, with the death toll likely to rise further as emergency responders continued rescue operations at the site of a multi-storey apartment block destroyed in the attack.
The nature of the damage suggested the “deliberate targeting of residential buildings”, Tkachenko said, adding that Russia had attacked everything from “upper floors to basements”.
In a video posted to his Telegram channel on Tuesday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said emergency services had found pieces of cluster munitions used by Russia to attack the city overnight, which he called “the latest evidence of the genocide that Russia is committing against Ukrainians”.
In the southern port city of Odesa, regional governor Oleh Kiper said one woman had been killed and 17 people injured after an overnight Russian drone strike, with rescuers searching for another woman trapped under the rubble of a destroyed building.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched a total of over 440 drones and 32 missiles at seven regions of the country overnight, with Kyiv subject to “one of the most horrific attacks”.
He condemned the strikes as “pure terrorism” and called on the US, Europe and the rest of the world to respond to them “as a civilised society responds to terrorists”.
“Putin does this solely because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is wrong when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it”, Zelensky wrote on X. “It is the terrorists who must feel the pain, not innocent peaceful people”.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said Putin had ordered Russian forces to target civilians “on purpose” during the ongoing G7 summit in Canada, which Zelensky is due to attend on Tuesday, sending a “signal of total disrespect to the United States and other partners who have called for an end to the killing”.
“Putin’s goal is very simple: make the G7 leaders appear weak”, Sybiha said. “Only strong steps and real pressure on Moscow can prove him wrong”.