Flags in Kiev were flown at half-mast today. Ukrainians mourned more than two dozen people killed in the deadliest Russian strike on the Ukrainian capital this year, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Russia sent 440 drones and fired 32 missiles during the night attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. The strikes also hit an apartment building, which was almost leveled to the ground.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have so far yielded no results. Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said today that the death toll had reached 28 people. Search operations are ongoing. Two more people were killed in a strike in the southern port city of Odessa.
Residents of the capital visited the site of a partially collapsed apartment building where rescuers were searching through the rubble. A Reuters correspondent saw two bodies pulled from the rubble.
Ukrainian officials said about 27 sites in Kiev, including educational institutions and critical infrastructure, were hit in the overnight Russian attack. Dozens of people were injured.
Russia's defense ministry said it had used air-, ground- and sea-based missiles, as well as drones, to strike "objects of Ukraine's military-industrial complex" in the Kiev region and in the southern Zaporizhia region.
In recent weeks, Moscow has stepped up drone and missile strikes on Kiev and other Ukrainian cities as talks to end the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, have made little progress.