Seven killed in Kyiv in new Russian aerial attack

At least seven people have been killed and several injured in an overnight Russian missile and drone attack in the Kyiv region, the interior minister has said.

In a post on social media, Ihor Klymenko said residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure had been hit.

At least six of those who died were in a high-rise building in the capital, Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said, adding that 22 others had been injured in the city.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is travelling to London on Monday for talks with PM Keir Starmer on UK military support for Ukraine.

In the latest barrage 352 Russian drones and 16 missiles targeted Ukrainian territory, mostly in the Kyiv area, the Ukrainian air force said.

Russia has intensified its air attacks against Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, sending large waves of missiles, drones and decoys designed to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences.

It is a tactic that Ukrainian forces are struggling to defend against.

Many thousands of Kyiv residents were forced down the shelters in the early hours of Monday morning as drones flew overhead and impacts shook the city.

Ukraine’s emergencies service shared footage showing shocked residents being led away from a destroyed high-rise building that was still burning.

Along with those killed in the capital, one person reportedly died after a drone struck a hospital in the city of Bila Tserkva to the south.

Speaking to reporters this week in the capital, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky vowed to step up Ukrainian strikes on Russia.

“We will not just sit in defence because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories,” he said.

It comes as the capital is still reeling from overnight Russian attacks on Tuesday which left at least 28 people dead and more than 100 injured.

The attack was among the biggest on the capital since the start of Russia’s full-scale war which began in February 2022.

Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war have stalled. The last direct talks between the two sides finished almost three weeks ago with agreement only on limited exchanges of prisoners and the bodies of the dead.

No new talks have been scheduled.

Zelensky had been due to meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 conference last week, but the meeting was cancelled after Trump left the conference early amid the escalating crisis in the Middle East.

Zelensky is due to attend a dinner during a Nato summit in The Netherlands that begins on Tuesday.