Deadly new Russian drone attack hits Kyiv » Capital News
LONDON, United Kingdom, Jul 10 — A massive overnight Russian drone attack hit Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, killing at least two people and injuring 13, local officials say.
Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district and fires burned across the city.
Residents’ sleep was interrupted for three hours as drones and missiles converged on Kyiv, air defences went into action and explosions reverberated. Footage on social media, not yet verified by the BBC, showed blasts in the night sky.
Ukraine reported the biggest ever Russian aerial attack on Tuesday night, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, Kyiv’s military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.
“Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning,” administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed a 68-year-old woman and a 22-year-old police officer at a metro station had been killed.
In Kyiv’s Podilsky district, a primary healthcare centre was “almost completely destroyed”, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.
City residents were urged to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted, and also close the windows when they returned to their homes because there was a “lot of smoke” in Kyiv.
Overnight, Ukraine’s air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.
Russia’s military has not commented on the reported latest attack.
The latest attack underlines just how remote the prospects of a diplomatic breakthrough seem to have become.
On Wednesday, Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said diplomacy had been exhausted. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, spoke in similar terms earlier in the week.
And US President Donald Trump seems increasingly impatient with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Peskov said Moscow was “pretty calm about this. Trump’s way of talking is generally quite harsh, the phrases he uses”.
The two leaders have been in regular contact, but this has so far failed to translate into tangible steps towards a ceasefire in Ukraine – something Trump once said he would be able to achieve in a day.
Trump has been threatening sanctions on Russia since taking office in January but has so far not imposed any.
A bipartisan bill is working its way through Congress which would penalise countries such as China and India that continue to buy Russian oil and gas. Trump said he might support it.
The focus among Kyiv’s allies has now shifted back to how to protect Ukraine and punish Russia, with Europe working on a new package of sanctions.
All this is likely to be discussed in Rome, where a two-day conference attended by delegates from 77 countries on Ukraine’s recovery is due to start on Thursday.
With Russia’s drone attacks on Ukraine increasing in frequency and scale, renewed attention on how to protect Ukraine’s airspace could also be on the agenda.
Later on Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a summit in Malaysia.
Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.