Russian missile and drone attacks kill 13 and injure 132 in Kyiv
A five-month-old girl was among 14 children wounded, Ukraine's Emergency Service said.
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It was the highest number of children injured in a single attack on Kyiv since the start of Russia's invasion three years ago, according to public records consulted by The Associated Press.
A large part of a nine-storey residential building collapsed in the attack, City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said.
Residents at the scene of one Russian strike (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
Rescue teams searched for people trapped under the rubble.
Yana Zhabborova, 35, a resident of the damaged building, woke up to the sound of thundering explosions, which blew off the doors and windows of her home.
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'It is just stress and shock that there is nothing left,' said Ms Zhabborova, a mother of a five-month-old baby and a five-year-old child.
Russia fired 309 Shahed and decoy drones and eight Iskander-K cruise missiles overnight, the Ukrainian air force said. Air defences intercepted and jammed 288 strike drones and three missiles, and five missiles and 21 drones struck targets.
Russian troops also struck a residential five-storey building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, according to the head of Donetsk regional military administration Vadym Filashkin.
He said one person was killed and at least 11 more injured.
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Rescuers work in the rubble of a destroyed apartment building (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
Russia's Ministry of Defence said it had shot down 32 Ukrainian drones overnight.
A drone attack sparked a blaze at an industrial site in Russia's Penza region, local governor Oleg Melnichenko said, adding that there were no casualties.
In the Volgograd region, some trains were halted after drone wreckage fell on railway infrastructure, state operator Russian Railways said.
Russia's Defence Ministry also said that its forces had taken full control of the strategically important city of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
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Russian and Ukrainian troops have battled for control of Chasiv Yar for nearly 18 months. It includes a hilltop from which troops can attack other key points in the region that form the backbone of Ukraine's eastern defences.
Victor Trehubov, a Ukrainian military spokesperson, told The Associated Press that Russia's claim was untrue.
'Just a fabrication, there wasn't even a change in the situation,' he said.
A report on Thursday from Ukraine's Army General Staff said there had been seven clashes in Chasiv Yar in the past 24 hours. An attached map showed most of the town under Russian control.
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Firefighters work to extinguish a fire in Kyiv (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
DeepState, an open-source Ukrainian map widely used by the military and analysts, showed early on Thursday that neighbourhoods to the south and west of Chasiv Yar remained uncontrolled by either side.
The overnight drone attacks targeted the Kyiv, Dnipro, Poltava, Sumy and Mykolaiv regions, with Ukraine's capital being the primary target, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
At least 27 locations across Kyiv were hit, Mr Tkachenko said, with the heaviest damage in the Solomianskyi and Sviatoshynskyi districts. More than 100 buildings were damaged in the capital, including homes, schools, nurseries, medical facilities and universities, he added.
'Today, the world once again saw Russia's answer to our desire for peace with America and Europe,' Mr Zelensky said. 'New demonstrative killings. That is why peace without strength is impossible.'
He called on Ukraine's allies to follow through on defence commitments and pressure Moscow towards real negotiations.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline — August 8 — for peace efforts to make progress, or Washington will impose punitive sanctions and tariffs.
Western leaders have accused Mr Putin of dragging his feet in US-led peace efforts in an attempt to capture more Ukrainian land.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
In wartime, demonstrations in Ukraine can never be more than a peaceful protest
Once a decade, Ukraine has a moment in which street protests redefine the country's political direction. The Orange revolution of 2004; the Maidan revolution of 2014; and now, over the past 10 days, the first major wave of protest since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. A series of unexpectedly boisterous and well-attended demonstrations forced Volodymyr Zelenskyy to execute a swift U-turn on his decision to scrap the independence of two anti-corruption bodies. On Thursday, MPs reversed the contentious changes they had adopted a week previously. Outside the parliament building, crowds whooped and cheered as the result of the vote was announced. The size, scope and demands of this latest protest movement have been much more modest than those of its revolutionary predecessors, but the spectacle has been no less remarkable, given the context of full-scale war in which it has taken place. The final, celebratory gathering came only hours after the latest massive Russian airstrike had hit Kyiv, killing at least 28 people including three children. Hardly anyone had managed a good night's sleep before arriving at parliament armed with banners and high spirits. This wartime context to a large extent inspired the protests: a common sentiment that when people are laying down their lives for the country on the frontline, the government has to live up to a certain set of values. But it also limited their scope. There was none of the revolutionary enthusiasm of Maidan present here; instead, there was a sober acknowledgement that all-out political unrest would only play into Russia's hands. 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Zelenskyy's response was swift and decisive, even if somewhat embarrassing for the MPs of his Servant of the People party, who were instructed to vote against the very thing they had been ordered to vote for the previous week. Now that the status quo has been re-established, there are two very different readings of the whole episode. One sees a leader using wartime powers to try to stifle independent institutions, too out of touch to predict the obvious backlash. Another reflects on how, even in wartime, Ukrainian society is still capable of expressing democratic sentiment, and its leaders still able to react swiftly to it. Koziatynskyi, whose post started off the protest wave, leans towards the second view. 'The protests showed that Ukrainian democracy is as strong as possible in times of a full-scale war, and our society is mature enough to have a dialogue with the government, and the government is able to listen,' he said. Zelenskyy's five-year presidential term should have ended last year, but almost all Ukrainians, including his fiercest opponents, agree that elections are both legally and technically impossible during wartime. With Russia's nightly attacks continuing, and a hope that Donald Trump might finally start getting tougher on Russia, that consensus has not changed. Nobody wants upheaval, but the outburst of protest may yet change the political atmosphere. 'Legally, everything will go back to how it was; politically, it's more complicated,' said Sovsun. 'It's unpredictable what this might have done to Ukrainian society. We have basically lifted the unspoken rule that we don't protest during martial law.'
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Ukraine war briefing: death toll from Kyiv strike rises to 31 as Russia accelerates military advance
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Times
4 hours ago
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Gestures are not enough — we need a coherent strategy for Ukraine
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