Russia Strikes Ukraine With Massive Air Attack, Killing Two

Ukraine and its capital came under a massive Russian drone assault early Saturday, killing at least two people in Kyiv as Moscow shows little willingness to stop the war.

At least two people, including a one-year-old child, were killed, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post Sunday. Eighteen people were injured, according to the State Emergency Service.

Smoke was rising from Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers building.

The strikes hit residential areas of the capital. A nine-story apartment block in one of Kyiv’s districts sustained heavy damage, with several floors partially destroyed, according to authorities. Several other buildings and cars also caught fire, including a government building in the Pechersk district, Klitschko said.

Separately, the central cities of Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro as well as the southern port city of Odesa were under attack, with civilian infrastructure targeted and some people injured, local authorities said.

Russia has stepped up airstrikes in recent months. July was among the deadliest months for civilians in Ukraine since May 2022, according to the United Nations. On Aug. 28, a raid on Kyiv killed at least 25 people, local authorities said.

European leaders are increasingly concerned that Russia will mount a new offensive on Ukraine. At a security council meeting in Toulon at the end of last month, German and French officials discussed the issue of Russian troops massing outside Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian-held stronghold in the eastern Donetsk region.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s recent push to broker an end to Russia’s full-scale invasion, including a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last month, Moscow has shown little willingness to commit to a ceasefire. Putin said last week that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is ready for talks, “let him come to Moscow.”

Zelenskiy on Friday said in an interview with ABC News that if Putin wants, he can go to Kyiv. “I cannot go to Moscow when my country is under missiles, under attack each day. I cannot go to the capital of this terrorist,” he said.