KYIV: Kyiv was shrouded in dark smoke early Thursday after Russia hammered Ukraine’s capital with its second large-scale drone and missile barrage in as many nights, killing at least two people.
The massive barrage came before Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was set to meet his US counterpart Marco Rubio in Malaysia, and as Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky was in Rome to push for more political and military support.
AFP journalists heard loud detonations reverberating over Kyiv throughout the night and saw flashes from air defence systems illuminating the sky during the attack.
Nadia Voitsekhivska, a Kyiv resident, told AFP near one of the impact sites that her sister was in a state of shock after managing to escape a fire in her building.
“Thank God, everyone survived. But her husband was taken away by an ambulance,” she said, adding: “Everything burned down. Documents, money, everything.”
The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 415 drones and missiles at the country while Zelensky urged allies to roll out fresh sanctions on Moscow faster.
“Sanctions must be imposed faster, and pressure on Russia must be strong enough that they truly feel the consequences of their terror,” he wrote on social media.
The fresh onslaught came just one night after Russia fired a record number of 741 long-range drones and missiles at Ukraine since launching its costly invasion more than three years ago.
The attack killed two women — a 22-year-old policewoman, who was on an overnight duty at a metro station, and a 68-year-old Kyiv resident, and left 16 people wounded, authorities said.
AFP reporters saw firefighters putting out flames in a damaged residential building and people emerging from shelters, carrying sleeping mats and pets after the air alert was lifted.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said debris from downed Russian projectiles had sparked fires in several districts. Russia’s defence ministry said the strike had targeted “military-industrial enterprises” in Kyiv as well as airbases.
Three people were also wounded in Russian strikes in southern Kherson, regional authorities said, and one person was killed in Russia’s western Belgorod region after a Ukrainian attack.
Russia’s escalating attacks and record barrage point to a trend that has piled pressure on Ukraine’s thinly stretched air defences and exhausted the civilian population.
Two rounds of direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations this year secured more prisoner exchanges but made no progress on a ceasefire, proposed by the United States and Ukraine.
Washington’s top diplomat, Rubio, will meet his Russian counterpart in Kuala Lumpur on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting, a senior State Department official said.
Their meeting follows Donald Trump’s recent expletive-filled comments about Vladimir Putin — reflecting the US president’s growing frustration with the Russian leader over the grinding war.
Trump accused Putin of talking “bullshit” about Ukraine, adding that the United States would send Kyiv more weapons to defend itself.
Rubio and Lavrov last met in person in February in Saudi Arabia, following a rapprochement between Trump and Putin. The two diplomats have also spoken multiple times by phone.
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