Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Russia attacked the capital of Ukraine in the early hours of Sunday morning, hitting at least two residential buildings, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, as elsewhere Russian troops consolidated its gains in the east.
Journalists from the Associated Press in Kyiv saw rescue services fighting the flames and rescuing civilians. Klitschko said four people were hospitalized with injuries and a 7-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble. Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko told Telegram that a kindergarten was affected by the attacks.
The member of the Ukrainian Parliament, Oleksiy Goncharenko, wrote in the messaging application Telegram that “according to preliminary data, 14 missiles were launched against the Kyiv and Kiev region.” Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said the missiles were Kh-101 cruise missiles fired from planes over the Caspian Sea.
Prior to the Sunday morning attack, Kyiv had not faced any Russian airstrikes since June 5th.
Klitschko told reporters he believes “maybe it’s a symbolic attack” ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Madrid.
Two more explosions were later heard in Kyiv, but their cause and possible casualties were not immediately clear.
President Joe Biden, when asked about his reaction to Russian missile attacks on Sunday in Kyiv, said, “It’s more of his barbarity,” as he met with Olaf Scholz as the German chancellor greeted leaders arriving to open the summit. of the Group of Seven.
Meanwhile, Russian forces have tried to swallow the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region, pressuring its momentum after taking full control on Saturday of the charred ruins of Sievierodonetsk and the chemical plant where hundreds of people had been hiding. Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. .
Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Lugansk region that includes Sievierodonetsk, said on Sunday that Russia was carrying out intense airstrikes in the adjacent city of Lysychansk, destroying its TV tower and severely damaging a road bridge.
“There is a lot of destruction: Lysychansk is almost unrecognizable,” he wrote on Facebook.
Also Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States and other major economies in the Group of Seven intend to announce a ban on gold imports from Russia. They hope that this measure will further isolate Russia economically due to its invasion of Ukraine.
Senior Biden administration officials said gold is Moscow’s second-largest export after energy and that banning imports would make it difficult for Russia to participate in global markets.
Biden’s Twitter channel said Russia “gets tens of billions of dollars” from the sale of its gold, its second-largest export after energy.
On Saturday, Russia also launched dozens of missiles into various areas of the country away from the heart of eastern battles. Some of the missiles were fired from long-range Russian Tu-22 bombers deployed from Belarus for the first time, Ukraine’s air command said.
The bombing preceded a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, during which Putin announced that Russia planned to supply Belarus with the Iskander-M missile system.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday afternoon that Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces now control Sievierodonetsk and the surrounding villages. He said the attempt by Ukrainian forces to turn the Nitrogen plant into a “stubborn center of resistance” had been thwarted.
Haidai confirmed on Saturday that Sievierodonetsk had fallen into the hands of Russian and separatist fighters, who said they were now trying to block Lysychansk from the south.
The Russian news agency Interfax quoted a spokesman for the separatist forces, Andrei Marochko, as saying that Russian troops and separatist fighters had entered Lysychansk and that fighting was taking place in the heart of the city. There was no immediate comment on the Ukrainian side’s claim.
Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk have been the focal point of a Russian offensive aimed at capturing the entire Donbas and destroying the defending Ukrainian army, the segment most capable and hardened by the battle of the country’s armed forces.
The capture of Lysychansk would give Russian forces control of all major settlements in the province, an important step toward Russia’s goal of capturing the entire Donbas. The Russians and separatists control about half of Donetsk, the second province of the Donbass.
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