with videoRussian cruise missiles hit a residential complex near the center of Kiev this morning. The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the attack was an attempt by Moscow to “intimidate the Ukrainians” just hours before the opening of a G7 summit in Germany, where the war in Ukraine is at the top of the agenda.
Bob van Huet
Latest update:
12:19
At sunrise, residents of the Ukrainian capital were awakened by loud explosions. Police chief Ihor Klymenko said on Ukrainian television that at least five people were injured. Kiev had been spared from Russian bombing since early June. Western journalists this morning saw the top three floors of a building on fire and the stairwell completely destroyed. The police had closed the area.
Four injured, including a 7-year-old girl and her mother, were hospitalized, Mayor Klitschko reported on Telegram. He added that rescue work was underway. “Our soldiers are doing everything they can to prevent attacks on our city. But unfortunately we cannot guarantee 100% security in Kiev or elsewhere in Ukraine as long as this aggression continues,” Klitschko said. One Russian missile is said to have been shot down by anti-aircraft fire in the Kiev region, the remains of the missile fell on a village, Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of the Kiev region, said on Telegram. A total of 14 cruise missiles were reportedly fired at Kiev and its region this morning. “They bombed here three times. I woke up to the first explosion, went to the balcony and saw rockets fall and heard a huge explosion, everything was shaking. I saw injured people come out with my own eyes,” said one resident.
Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said Russia had used long-range missiles fired by planes flying over the Caspian Sea, which is nearly 1,500 kilometers southeast of Kiev.
Nataliya, 63, and her daughter Olha, 32, watched from across the parking lot of the apartment complex as rescuers tried to put out the fire. They carried a stretcher down the stairs from the eighth floor. Nataliya, a doctor who asked not to use her last name, told The New York Times she had just recently returned to Kiev to avoid heavy shelling in her hometown of Kharkov. “It’s like a nightmare,” she told Olha. “When will it end?” Olha and her husband, Roman, 35, were concerned that their window glass was broken and looters would steal their belongings. “This neighborhood used to be known as the ‘quiet center’,” Olha said.
Same complex
In late April, another Russian bombing struck the same residential complex in the capital during a visit by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. A Ukrainian journalist from Radio Liberty was subsequently murdered in her apartment. Today, leaders of the great powers, including US President Joe Biden, speak about Ukraine in the Bavarian Alps at the G7 summit.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said last night that he planned to participate via video conference with the leaders. “This is one such phase in the war – morally difficult, emotionally difficult (…). It’s not just the destruction of our infrastructure, it’s the cynical pressure calculated on the emotions of the population,” Zelenski said. But “no Russian missile or bombardment will break the spirit of the Ukrainians.” He also again argued for more Western aid with armaments and anti-aircraft systems, and found the current sanctions ‘inadequate’.
No Russian missile or bombing will break the spirit of the Ukrainians
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that his country will supply “in the coming months” Belarus, from which attacks have been carried out on Ukrainian territory, missiles capable of carrying nuclear payloads. In statements that could further strain relations between Moscow and the West, the two leaders also said they wanted to modernize the Belarusian air force to enable it to carry nuclear weapons. At the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, several rocket attacks were carried out from Belarus.
Russian troops yesterday halted the evacuation of civilians hiding at a chemical plant in the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk. According to the Russian news agency TASS, Ukrainian artillery shelling prevented the safe retreat of the civilians.
Both Russia and Ukraine reported on Saturday that the strategically located city in the Luhansk region is completely in the hands of the Russian military and pro-Russian separatists. Yet there is still fighting. An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky admitted on Saturday evening that Ukrainian artillery shelled the city. According to the adviser, there are also Ukrainian commandos in Severodonetsk that pass on targets.
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