Kyiv overnight strikes kill 15 civilians

KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) — Russian forces launched a “massive” attack on Kyiv on Thursday, hitting the Ukrainian capital with strikes that killed at least 15 people and wounded around 30 others, Ukrainian officials said.

“A horrific and deliberate killing of civilians. The Russians are not choosing to end the war, only new strikes,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on social media.

Those killed included four children, one a 14-year-old girl, while five children aged seven to 17 were among those who sustained “injuries of varying severity,” Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city’s military administration, said.

Tkachenko said Moscow had fired ballistic and cruise missiles as well as Iranian-designed Shahed drones from different directions to “systematically” target residential buildings.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists in Kyiv witnessed powerful explosions that illuminated the night sky and left behind a column of smoke.

Red tracer bullets sailed through the night sky in an effort to intercept drones above the city centre, an AFP journalist saw. At least one missile appeared to be shot down.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko described the strikes as a “massive attack” that caused damage in several districts of the capital.

A five-storey building in the Darnytsky district had collapsed, and a shopping mall was hit in the city center, Klitschko reported.

Around 100 people took refuge in a subway station, with some lying in sleeping bags and others holding their pets.

European Union chief Antonio Costa posted a picture of the inside of the EU mission’s office with the windows blown out, ceiling partially hanging down and debris scattered on the floor.

An EU official told AFP that none of the bloc’s employees had been hurt.