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The latest Russian missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv overnight on Tuesday killing at least 14 people and wounding more than three dozen others was “pure terrorism”, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy said the strike was “one of the most horrifying attacks on Kyiv,” saying more than 440 drones and 32 missiles were launched across multiple regions of Ukraine.
“Putin is doing this solely because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to continue. It is bad when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to this,” the Ukrainian leader said in a post on Telegram.
The attack is the latest in a series of massive drone and missile attacks on the Ukrainian capital, coming at a time when world leaders convened at the Group of Seven (G7) meeting in Canada, which Zelenskyy is expected to attend.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters at the scene in Kyiv that a US citizen was among those killed in the attacks after suffering shrapnel wounds from the blast. Explosions could be heard for hours throughout the night in the early hours of Tuesday.
Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block, according to Klymenko. He noted the death toll is likely to rise as emergency workers descended to the scene of a collapsed apartment building to search for bodies buried under the rubble.
People were wounded in the city’s Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts. Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said fires broke out in two other Kyiv districts as a result of falling debris from drones shot down by Ukrainian air defences.
Canada, which assumed the presidency of the G7 this year, invited Zelenskyy to the summit, where he is expected to hold one-on-one meetings with world leaders on Tuesday.
Zelenskyy was set to meet with US President Donald Trump in Canada on Tuesday. However, the White House announced that Trump would return unexpectedly to Washington on Monday night, rather than Tuesday.
Russia has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks. Moscow further escalated attacks after Ukraine’s Security Service agency executed an operation targeting war planes in air bases deep inside Russian territory.
The Ukrainian leader says little progress has emerged from the direct peace talks held in Istanbul, with the exception of prisoner exchanges, which are expected to conclude next week.
