strikes leave 4 dead and dozens injured in Kyiv

Ukraine’s foreign affairs ministry said: “Ukrainian animals have once again become targets of Russian missiles and drones. The world cannot stand aside while a terrorist state takes lives — human or animal — every single day.”

Lesia Hordiienko of the Ukrainian federation of equestrian tourism said the horses were being trained to compete in a national competition before the strike on the Endurance club, which is in the town of Fastiv in the Kyiv region.

“The building warped, the doors and windows were blown out,” she wrote. “A Shahed strike hit the pastures of the horse club. Apparently, this is also a military target.”

Ukraine’s prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko has shared a video from inside the government building damaged by Russia’s attack on Kyiv.

She said: “Our whole team works in this building daily. Fortunately, no one was injured. Russian barbarism will not halt the work of Ukraine’s government.

“The walls will be repaired, they are only bricks, but the lives of our people can’t be restored. In this night’s Russian attack 4 people killed and 44 injured.”

Kyivans are hard to shock: after more than three years of war, and almost nightly airstrikes, waking up to reports of death in the city is sadly not new (writes Jack Clover).

Seeing smoke billowing out of one of the seats of Ukraine’s government, however, is.

Currently it is unclear whether the fire at the Cabinet of Ministers building was caused by a direct hit by a Russian drone or missile, or by the shrapnel that flew off it as it was shot down.

What is clear is Russia’s brutal strategy of quantity over quality has proved to be effective.

Russia has ramped up its production of comparatively cheap Shahed drones with the logic that, if they fire enough of them in one night, they will overwhelm Ukraine’s defences and some will hit a target.
Even those that are shot down are useful to Russia as they incite fear.

European leaders have condemned the strikes on Ukraine, accusing Russia of “mocking diplomacy”.

President Macron of France said Russia was “locking itself ever deeper into the logic of war and terror”. He added: “By Ukraine’s side, we will continue to do everything to ensure that a just and lasting peace prevails.”

Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, said: “Talking about peace while escalating bombings and targeting government buildings and homes — this is Putin’s version of ‘peace’. Russia started this war, and Russia is choosing to continue it.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said: “Once again, the Kremlin is mocking diplomacy, trampling international law and killing indiscriminately. Europe stands, and will continue to stand, fully behind Ukraine.”

Sir Keir Starmer said Russia’s “cowardly” strikes on Kyiv show that President Putin “believes he can act with impunity” and is not serious about peace.

The prime minister said: “I’m appalled by the latest brutal overnight assault on Kyiv and across Ukraine, which killed civilians and hit infrastructure. For the first time, the heart of Ukraine’s civilian government was damaged.

“These cowardly strikes show that Putin believes he can act with impunity. He is not serious about peace. Now, more than ever, we must stand firm in our support for Ukraine and its sovereignty.”

At least four people have died and 44 others were injured in the Russian strikes, President Zelensky has said.

The Ukrainian president condemned the attacks as “ruthless” in a social media post.

The Russian military said in a statement on Sunday that its airstrikes had targeted Ukraine’s “military-industrial complex and transport infrastructure”.

It claimed that damage was inflicted on drone assembly and launch sites, weapons warehouses, airfields and radar stations as well as Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries.

A kindergarten and more than 20 residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia were damaged in the Russian attacks, Ukrainian officials said.

Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of the region in southern Ukraine, wrote in a post on Telegram that at least 17 people had been injured since Saturday evening.

“Every day the enemy tries to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians,” he said. “There is only one proof of this — enemy attacks on civilians, on all the cities of our state.”

Russia declared its annexation of the Zaporizhzhia region in September 2022 but its troops have never controlled its capital city.

Doctors were forced to induce labour in the case of a pregnant woman injured in the strikes on Kyiv, according to local media.

The 24-year-old from the Svyatoshinsky district of the capital was injured in a strike on a block of flats, the Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported,

She was rushed to hospital with severe burns, where her baby was delivered prematurely. Both mother and child are in intensive care.

The British defence secretary. John Healey. was in Ukraine this week and said he saw the effects “firsthand of the intense attacks that Putin is now launching”.

He told Adam Boulton on Times Radio: “I stood outside the bombed British Council building in Kyiv, but I also heard military and civilian Ukrainians alike determined, defiant, that they will keep fighting this illegal invasion of Putin for as long as it takes”.

The British Council building was bombed last week as part of an earlier severe bombardment.

On Sunday, Healey insisted that if British troops went into Ukraine as part of a “coalition of the willing” to reinforce a peace deal, they would not be there as a “combat force”.

“It’s there to secure the seas, the … skies, the … land. It’s there to reassure the Ukrainians and it’s there also to rebuild the strength of the Ukrainian armed forces because in the end it’s Ukraine that is their best defence.”

Away from Kyiv, Russian attacks also targeted Kremenchuk on the banks of the Dnipro river in central Ukraine.

Vitalii Maletskyi, the mayor, said dozens of explosions were heard overnight and part of the city was left without power.

The bridge across the river was damaged and closed to traffic. Maletskyi said free buses would transport citizens across the river through the dam of the Kremenchuk reservoir.

Ukraine’s air force claimed it intercepted 751 out of the 823 Russian drone and missile launches detected overnight.

The aerial assault — the largest of the war so far — involved 810 drones, nine Iskander-K cruise missiles and four Iskander-M ballistic missiles, it said.

Strikes by drones and missiles were recorded at 33 locations across Ukraine, the air force said.

Air defence systems, including aircraft, anti-aircraft missiles and electronic warfare, shot down 747 drones and four cruise missiles.

The number of people injured in the overnight strikes has risen to 20, with others feared trapped under the rubble, Kyiv’s mayor has said.

“The death of two people — a young woman and her two-month-old son — has been confirmed,” Vitali Klitschko said.

“Search and rescue operations are ongoing at the most heavily damaged residential building in the Sviatoshynskyi district. There may still be people trapped under the rubble.”

Ukraine’s military claimed it attacked a major oil pipeline in Russia overnight, setting fire to a pumping station in the Bryansk region.

The Druzhba pipeline carries oil from eastern Russia via Belarus to European countries including Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Robert Brovdi, the head of the “Madyar’s Birds” aerial forces unit, posted a video on the messaging app Telegram and claimed that the drone strike had caused “comprehensive fire damage” to an oil pump.

Ukraine’s military said the LVDS 8-N facility “is of strategic importance for ensuring the transportation of oil products for the Russian occupation army”. The general staff of the armed forces said: “Numerous hits were recorded, followed by a fire in the area of ​​​​the pumping station and the tank farm.”

Russia has not yet commented on the reports.

Early on Sunday, on Kyiv’s Maidan Square smoke rose from behind the Hotel Ukraine, from within the government district (writes Jack Clover in Kyiv).

The very centre of Kyiv is heavily protected by anti-aircraft guns from Russian strikes but this morning one missile slipped though and struck the Cabinet of Ministers building, the seat of Ukraine’s government.

On the road leading to building, passersby walk their dogs and race past on electric scooters. Entry to this government quarter is blocked and anti-tank obstacles line the pavement. High above a helicopter circles and joins the efforts to extinguish the blaze.

A mother and her two-month-old son were killed in the strikes on Kyiv, Ukraine’s national police said.

The bodies of the 32-year-old woman and the infant were recovered from the rubble after a nine-storey building in the Sviatoshynskyi district was partially destroyed overnight.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said the baby’s father suffered serious injuries.

Homes were also damaged in the Darnytskyi district. “Enemy drones flew into ordinary people, into ordinary apartments — right into the windows,” Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram

Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, said “a record-breaking 800 drones flew at peaceful cities, residential buildings and infrastructure.”

In a social media post, President Zelensky’s wife said that “once again” Russian strikes “took innocent lives”.

“The shelling with missiles and drones continued until the morning. My condolences to all those who suffered injuries and losses. Today, Ukrainians are united in grief and in their strength to support each other.”

President Zelenksy condemned the attacks as “a deliberate crime and a prolongation of the war.”

He called for more sanctions on Russia and urged Western leaders to implement the plan agreed at Thursday’s meeting of the “Coalition of the Willing” in Paris.

“It has been repeatedly said in Washington that sanctions will follow a refusal to talk,” Zelensky said in a social media post. “The world can force the Kremlin criminals to stop the killings — all that is needed is political will. I thank everyone who is helping.”

The Paris summit, chaired by President Macron of France and Sir Keir Starmer, saw 26 countries commit to helping with security guarantees for Ukraine — including the potential deployment of troops — in the event of a peace deal. President Putin responded by warning that Western troops in Ukraine would become “legitimate targets for destruction”.

Russia launched its largest air assault of the war on Ukraine overnight, killing a young woman and an infant and hitting a key government building in Kyiv for the first time.

The Ukrainian air force said the attack involved 810 drones and 13 cruise and ballistic missiles, targeting Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kremenchuk, Odesa and other cities.

Smoke was seen rising above the Maidan square in the centre of the capital, as the Cabinet of Ministers building near Ukraine’s parliament caught fire.

Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s new prime minister, said: “Yes for the first time as a result of an enemy attack the building of the cabinet of ministers was damaged. The ceiling and upper floors,” she said. “We can repair buildings but we cannot replace lives lost.”