No less than six individuals had been killed and greater than 50 others had been wounded in a barrage of Russian drones and missiles that struck a number of districts of Kyiv and introduced down an condominium block, Ukrainian officers mentioned.
One of many lifeless was a six-year-old boy, and Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s navy administration, mentioned the loss of life toll may rise, with harm in additional than two dozen areas.
The high-pitched hum of Russian drones might be heard for hours over the capital, interrupted by the occasional loud thunder clap of a missile strike.
Russian assaults have continued regardless of US President Donald Trump’s risk to impose harder sanctions on Moscow if Vladimir Putin doesn’t conform to a ceasefire by 8 August.
Russia fired 309 drones and cruise missiles throughout the evening, in keeping with Ukraine’s air power, and though air defences did handle to destroy a few of the incoming fireplace, there have been quite a few hits.
A red-orange glow indicated destruction on the bottom.
Roman Petushkov/World Photos Ukraine“One of many strikes hit a residential high-rise constructing, a whole entrance was destroyed. Rescuers are clearing the rubble,” mentioned Ukraine’s inside minister Igor Klymenko.
Three of the fatalities had been on the website of the condominium block.
“The world has but once more seen Russia’s response to our, America’s and Europe’s need for peace. Extra demonstrative homicide,” mentioned President Volodymyr Zelensky. “This is the reason peace with out power is unimaginable.”
Kyiv’s Sviatoshynsky and Solomyansky districts had been hit hardest within the assault, the place one individual was killed and 20 extra had been injured, in keeping with Klymenko.
The home windows of a hospital ward for kids in Shevchenkivsky district had been blown out by a shockwave, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, mentioned on Telegram.
Certainly one of Kyiv’s greater schooling establishments, a faculty and a kindergarten had been additionally broken throughout the assault.
International Minister Andrii Sybiha mentioned it was a “horrible morning” in Kyiv, and that there are “nonetheless individuals underneath the rubble”.
Sybiha added that Trump had been “very beneficiant and affected person” with Putin, however now it was time to place “most stress on Moscow” by sanctions.
ReutersEarlier in July, Trump set a 50-day deadline for the Kremlin to achieve a truce with Kyiv or threat financial penalties.
On Monday, throughout a go to to the UK, Trump minimize that deadline to “ten or 12 days”, expressing his disapproval at Putin’s actions in Ukraine, greater than three years since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of the nation.
Trump did not say whether or not he felt the Russian president had been “mendacity” to him, however he mentioned there was a discrepancy between Putin’s rhetoric throughout their one-on-one conversations and the missiles “lobbed” on Ukrainian cities.
“We had been going to have a ceasefire and possibly peace… and hastily you may have missiles flying into Kyiv and different locations,” Trump mentioned.