Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged his allies to bring about “regime change” in Russia, hours after Moscow launched a drone and missile attack on Kyiv that killed 12 people, including a six-year-old boy.
The overnight strikes reduced part of a nine-storey apartment block in Kyiv’s western suburbs to rubble and wounded dozens more in the capital, according to reports from authorities.
The Russian army, meanwhile, claimed to have captured a strategically important hillside town in eastern Ukraine, where the two sides have been fiercely fighting for months.
Speaking virtually to a conference on Thursday, marking 50 years since the signing of the Cold War-era Helsinki Accords, Mr Zelenskyy said he believed Russia could be “pushed” to stop the war.
“If the world doesn’t aim to change the regime in Russia, that means even after the war ends, Moscow will still try to destabilise neighbouring countries,”
he said.Russia pounds Ukraine with hundreds of drone attacks
Through the night to Thursday, Russia fired more than 300 drones and eight cruise missiles at Ukraine, mostly targeting Kyiv, the Ukrainian air force said.
One missile tore through a nine-storey residential building in western Kyiv, tearing off its facade, authorities said.
The Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv came under a heavy bombardment from Russian drone and missile attacks through the night. (Reuters: Valentyn Ogirenko)
AFP journalists at the scene of the strike saw rescuers scouring through a smouldering mound of broken concrete, the belongings of residents scattered among the debris.
As the sun rose, emergency crews were putting out fires and cutting through concrete blocks in search for survivors across the capital.
Reuters reported that 1,200 police and rescuers were at the scene, with searches for people continuing right through Tuesday local time.
The attack killed 12 people in Kyiv and injured 135 others, a rescue services spokesperson told AFP.
Buildings were significantly damaged in the Russian attacks, which also killed eight people. (Reuters: Iryna Rybakova / Press Service of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces)
Among the dead was a six-year-old boy, who died on the way to hospital in an ambulance, the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said in a post on Telegram.
At one location, rescuers spent more than three hours getting to a man trapped in rubble by cutting through the wall of a neighbouring apartment, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.
The man talked to the emergency services during the operation and was pulled out alive, it added.
Ukrainian rescue workers who responded to attack sites in Kyiv were seen sorting through mounds of rubble and debris searching for survivors. (Reuters: Valentyn Ogirenko)
A five-month-old baby was among the wounded, with five children hospitalised, Mr Tkachenko said on national television.
Schools and hospitals were among the buildings damaged across 27 locations in the city, officials said.
“The attack was extremely insidious and deliberately calculated to overload the air defence system,” Mr Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The attack on Kyiv amounted to the largest number of injured civilians in a single night in the city since the start of the war with Russia, the city’s mayor says. (Reuters: Valentyn Ogirenko)
He posted a video of burning ruins, saying people were still trapped under the rubble of one partially-ruined residential building as of the morning.
Kyiv authorities have declared Friday to be a day of mourning.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had targeted and hit Ukrainian military airfields and ammunition depots as well as businesses linked to what it called Kyiv’s military-industrial complex.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack had amounted to the largest number of injured civilians in a single night in the city since Russia started its full-scale invasion almost three and a half years ago.
The attack also came just days after US President Donald Trump issued a 10-day ultimatum for Moscow to halt its invasion, or face sanctions.
Russian forces capture key Donetsk military hub
Russia said on Thursday it had captured the town of Chasiv Yar, which had been a strategically important military hub for Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.
The town “was liberated by Russian forces”, Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement.
A Ukrainian military spokesperson called the claim “propaganda”, but a video posted by a Russian military unit and verified by Reuters showed a Russian paratroop banner and the national flag being raised by soldiers in the desolate ruins of the town.
“Of course, this is not true,” Viktor Tregubov, a spokesperson for the Khortytsia Operational Strategic Group of Forces, told AFP.
Taking control of Chasiv Yar would represent a major military boon for Russia, which has been making incremental but steady territorial gains for months.
Home to around 12,000 people before the war but now largely destroyed, the town’s capture would pave the way for Russian forces to advance on remaining civilian strongholds in the eastern Donetsk region.
Ukraine calls deadly Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia prison ‘another war crime’
These include the garrison city of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, important logistical bases for the Ukrainian military and home to many civilians, who have up to now not fled the fighting.
Moscow’s forces are also mounting intense pressure on the city of Pokrovsk, about 60 kilometres south-west of Chasiv Yar.
The Kremlin has made the capture of the Donetsk region a priority since it claimed the industrial region as part of Russia in September 2022.
Military analyst Emil Kastehelmi, co-founder of the Finland-based Black Bird Group, said it was likely that battles were continuing near Chasiv Yar.
“The terrain of Chasiv Yar has favoured the defender,” he told Reuters.
“Forested areas, waterways, hills and a varied building stock have enabled Ukraine to conduct a defensive operation lasting over a year, in which the Russians have made minimal monthly progress.”
The Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar, in the eastern Donetsk region, appeared completely destroyed in an image released by Russian forces. (AP: Supplied / Russian Defense Ministry Press Service)
Mr Kastehelmi said it was likely that the town’s fall, if confirmed, would create conditions for Russia to advance further in eastern Ukraine, but still only gradually.
“The fall of the city to the enemy is nevertheless a challenging situation for Ukraine, as it will bring the Russians closer to Kostiantynivka, which Russia is now approaching from several directions,” he said.
“The logistics in the area will also be affected, as Russians can bring drone teams even closer.”
The battle for Chasiv Yar began in April last year, when Russian paratroopers reached its eastern edge.
Russian state media reported then that Russian soldiers had begun phoning their Ukrainian counterparts inside the town to demand they surrender or be wiped out by aerial guided bombs.
After Thursday’s strikes, Ukrainian officials called for more pressure on Russia to end the war.
“President Trump has been very generous and very patient with Putin, trying to find a solution”, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on X.
“It’s time to make him feel the pain and consequences of his choices.
“It’s time to put maximum pressure on Moscow.”
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has not yet commented on the strike or Mr Zelenskyy’s call for regime change.
Mr Putin has himself called for Mr Zelenskyy to be removed from office and has repeatedly questioned his legitimacy.
AFP/Reuters