Standard
One person was killed and at least five people wounded after Russia launched missile strikes that hit a residential building and a nursery in Kyiv.
Ukraine Member of Parliament Oleksiy Goncharenko wrote on the Telegram messaging app that “according to prelim data 14 missiles were launched against Kyiv region and Kyiv.”
Prior to the attack, Kyiv had not faced any such Russian airstrikes since June 5.
Russian artillery hit Kyiv’s central Shevchenkivskiy district on Sunday morning, partially destroying a nine-storey apartment building and causing a fire, the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app.
“There are people under the rubble,” Klitschko said. He added that several people had already been hospitalised.
“They (the rescuers) have pulled out a seven-year-old girl. She is alive. Now they’re trying to rescue her mother.”
Mr Klitschko said he believes it may have been “a symbolic attack” by Russia ahead of this week’s Nato summit in Madrid.
At another site about 400 metres away, a Reuters photographer saw a large blast crater by a playground in a private nursery that had smashed windows. Some privately-held storage garages in the area were completely destroyed.
In the city of Cherkasy, about 100 miles south-east of Kyiv, one person was killed and five injured in strikes by two Russian rockets, regional governor Ihor Taburets said.
US President Joe Biden said condemned the strikes as ” barbarism”.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on G7 nations holding a three day summit in Germany to impose further sanctions on Moscow and to provide more heavy weapons.
A Ukrainian air force spokesperson said between four to six long-range missiles were fired from Russian bombers more than a thousand kilometres away in the southern Russian region of Astrakhan. He said some of the incoming missiles were shot down by Ukrainian air defences.
Up to four explosions shook central Kyiv early on Sunday. Hours later there were two more explosions in Kyiv, but there was no immediate sign of damage, suggesting inbound missiles could have been shot down.
It came as British defence chiefs said Russia’s capture of Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine marks a “significant achievement” in its war objectives.
The latest Ministry of Defence (MoD) update revealed that most Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from the war-torn city in the Donbas.
It read: “In April 2020, Russia revised its immediate campaign plan from aiming to occupy the majority of Ukraine, to a more focused offensive in the Donbas.
“Russia’s capture of the city is a significant achievement within this reduced objective. The settlement was a major industrial centre and it occupies a strategic position on the Siverskyi Donets River.”
However, the MoD adds it is “only one of several challenging objectives Russia will need to achieve to occupy the whole of the Donbas reg…
