Russian attacks on Kiev, UK and EU summon top Russian diplomats
Express newspaper
29/08/2025 7:41
The United Kingdom and the European Union have summoned their Russian envoys after overnight rocket attacks on Kiev that killed at least 21 people and damaged the British Council and EU offices in the city, in the deadliest air strike on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
Four children were among those killed after a residential building in the eastern Darnytskyi neighborhood was hit in the middle of the night, according to Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.
Hours later, another person died in a separate explosion in the central Shevchenkivskyi district of Kiev, which left buildings and offices severely damaged, including those housing the EU delegation to Ukraine and the British Council.
The incident marks the first time that British government property has been involved in a Russian attack since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, The Guardian reports.
Ukraine’s air force said the nation was targeted with 629 missiles and drones overnight, one of the largest airstrikes carried out by Russia since the February 2022 invasion. A wave of attacks could be heard from the city center after 3 a.m. and again, louder, shortly after 5:30 a.m. Officials reported impacts in more than 20 locations around Kiev. Another 38 people were injured.
Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said the attacks threatened the US president’s proposals to end the war. “These vile attacks threaten the peace that [Trump] is pursuing,” Kellogg said on social media, noting that they hit “innocent civilians” and the EU and British missions in the Ukrainian capital.
Trump was unhappy but “not surprised” by the attack, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said, as he called on “both sides” to end the war.
The Foreign Office in London summoned Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Andrey Kelin, at 13pm in direct response to the severe damage caused to the building, government sources said.
“Putin’s attacks last night killed civilians, destroyed homes and damaged buildings, including the British Council and the EU Delegation in Kiev,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy wrote on X.