Russians Resume Kyiv Attacks

Missiles strike residential buildings in capital
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jun 26, 2022 11:15 AM CDT
Airstrikes on Kyiv Resume
A boy holding his dog as his family evacuates from the war-hit area gets on an evacuation train in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, on Saturday.   (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in the early hours of Sunday morning, striking at least two residential buildings, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, as elsewhere Russian troops consolidated their gains in the east. AP journalists in Kyiv saw rescue services battling flames and rescuing civilians. Klitschko said four people were hospitalized with injuries, and a 7-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble. Culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said on Telegram that a kindergarten was hit in the attacks, the AP reports. Before Sunday’s early morning attack, Kyiv had not faced any such Russian airstrikes since June 5.

Klitschko told journalists that he believed "it is maybe a symbolic attack" ahead of this week's NATO summit in Madrid. Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that "according to prelim data 14 missiles were launched against Kyiv region and Kyiv." Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said the missiles were Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles fired from planes over the Caspian Sea. President Biden, asked for his reaction to the Russians' missile strikes Sunday on Kyiv, said, "It's more of their barbarism," as he stood with Olaf Scholz as the German chancellor greeted leaders arriving to open the Group of Seven summit.

In addition, Russian forces have been seeking to swallow up the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region, pressing their momentum after taking full control Saturday of the charred ruins of Sievierodonetsk and the chemical plant where hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians had been holed up. Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region that includes Sievierodonetsk, said Sunday that Russia was conducting intense airstrikes on the adjacent city of Lysychansk, destroying its television tower and seriously damaging a road bridge. "There's very much destruction—Lysychansk is almost unrecognizable," he wrote on Facebook.

(More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X