Two killed in Kyiv after Russian missile and drone attack | Ukraine
Russian drones and missiles hit Ukraine’s capital and other cities, killing two people in Kiev and damaging important energy facilities.
The attacks continued Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, as Kiev was hit by at least four ballistic missiles. A series of loud explosions were heard throughout the city.
Towards dawn and the beginning of the morning rush hour, air defenses targeting Russian drones could be heard over the traffic noise.
The latest attack came after Ukraine was reported to have launched a significant attack on a major chemical plant in Bryansk, in southwestern Russia, with Storm Shadow missiles supplied by Britain and France.
Explosions were heard throughout Kiev shortly after 1 a.m., followed by more about half an hour later. Explosions were also reported in Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Dnipro.
Among the buildings damaged in the capital, a high-rise apartment block in the Dniprovskyi district was hit by a drone and set on fire. Russian attacks continued until the morning.
“The death toll in the capital has risen to two,” Timur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said, as other city officials reported a massive drone strike.
Strikes in Ukraine’s eastern Poltava region have damaged oil and gas facilities, local governor Volodymyr Kohut said.
Russia has sharply increased the number and intensity of attacks on the Ukrainian energy system in recent weeks, targeting both power plants and gas facilities.
The latest attack came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was traveling to Sweden to meet his prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, in the city of Linkoping on Wednesday, at the start of a busy period of European diplomacy. On Friday, a meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing” will be held in London to strengthen support for Ukraine in the face of US president Donald Trump’s latest setback.
The Swedish government said, “Prime Minister and President Zelenskyy will hold a joint press conference to present news on defense exports.” It was stated that the leaders will also visit a company in connection with the meeting.
The latest airstrikes underlined the failure of Trump’s latest efforts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire, even as the US president tried forcefully to push Zelenskyy to give up the key eastern Donbas region in a testy meeting last week.
As Zelenskyy flew to Washington in hopes of securing long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, a two-hour prior phone call between Trump and Putin took a sudden U-turn, with Trump reportedly warning Zelenskyy that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine if he did not accept Russia’s terms.
Trump triggered an uproar in Europe to show support for Kiev by announcing his intention to meet Putin in the Hungarian capital within two weeks, but that summit was just as quickly shelved, with Trump saying on Tuesday he did not want a “wasted meeting”.
In a speech at the White House on Tuesday, Trump suggested that Moscow’s refusal to stop fighting on the current front line remained a major sticking point. A White House official previously said there were “no plans” for a Trump-Putin meeting “in the near future.”
