Nine-hour Russian missile and drone attack kills 16 in Kyiv and surrounding area

A large-scale Russian air strike killed 16 people and ‌injured more than 40 in Kyiv and the surrounding region on Thursday as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a failure by allies to replenish its stock of air defence missiles was costing lives.Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched dozens of cruise missiles, ​as well as ballistic and hypersonic missiles and 168 drones in the massive overnight attack.The air force said nearly 90 per cent of the drones and most of the cruise missiles were brought down. It did not specify how many ballistic missiles were launched and whether any were intercepted. Zelenskiy called Thursday’s strike one of the most “cynical, calculated, and large-scale” of the four-and-a-half-year-long war. The upper floors of a nine-storey residential block were destroyed in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He called for Friday to be ​observed as a day of mourning. READ MOREOverall, 30 residential buildings, a school, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten were damaged in the capital and the surrounding areas, Zelenskiy said. The site of a Russian missile strike on a residential area in Kyiv on Thursday Private energy company DTEK said it had restored power to about90,000 households that lost the ⁠supply after the attack.The Russian defence ministry said Moscow attacked Kyiv and the surrounding region with air strikes and drones, hitting facilities producing drone components, a military depot and a logistics ‌hub, ‌as ​well as other targets.The Russian strikes also targeted a border crossing with Moldova in the Black Sea region of Odesa, where repeated attacks on ports and ships have brought Ukraine’s vital agricultural exports to a virtual halt in recent weeks, putting pressure on global food prices.As Russia has escalated ⁠its ballistic strikes in recent months, Zelenskiy has pleaded with allies to replenish Ukraine’s stock ​of Patriot interceptors – the only weapon in its arsenal capable of taking down a ballistic missile.“The interceptors ​for Patriot systems have not yet been replaced, and they are needed every day,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app. “Each additional missile saves the lives of our people.” Moscow, he said, would not seriously negotiate for peace ‌as long as Ukraine had no missile defences to defend its cities. US-mediated ​talks to end the war stalled earlier this year as Kyiv refused to yield to Russian demands to cede more territory.“Unfortunately ... the world’s response to such attacks is not always adequate,” ⁠Zelenskiy said.Covered bodies of people killed in an overnight Russian missile strike on a residential area in Kyiv on Thursday EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on X, in response to ⁠Zelenskiy’s message, that she was working with member states ​and partners to provide Ukraine with anti-ballistic capabilities as “the most urgent of priorities”.Ukrainian prime minister Sergii Koretskyi said some food warehouses and the facilities of the Red Cross around Kyiv were damaged in the attack, which lasted nearly nine hours. In recent weeks, fresh fruit and vegetables have occasionally disappeared from the shelves in some supermarkets in Kyiv as a result of strikes on logistics depots of food retailers.While most of the dead were in the Ukrainian capital, one person was killed in the surrounding region, an official said on Telegram.Ukraine has also increased its attacks on Russia, targeting oil facilities and logistics infrastructure to try to ‌undermine Moscow’s ability to wage war. Overnight, authorities in ⁠Russia’s Tatarstan region – 1,000km east of Moscow – reported a disruption at an industrial complex in the city of Nizhnekamsk following a Ukrainian drone attack, adding that some residential apartments were also damaged. Ukraine’s military said it hit the Taneco oil refinery and an oil terminal in Krasnodar region. A drone crashed into Romania, a Nato and ‌EU member state, during the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Romanian defence ministry said. A drone also came down on Moldovan territory, president Maia Sandu said. Ukraine has given peace proposals to US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for a plan ​to end the war, Zelenskiy said this month. The Kremlin said on Thursday there was no information yet on a possible visit to Moscow ​by Kushner and Witkoff, who were last in the Russian capital in January and have not yet visited Kyiv. No date has yet been confirmed for a proposed visit to Ukraine, according to one source familiar with the discussions. – Reuters