- Russian missiles hit an apartment building in Kyiv
- People trapped among the rubble, ongoing rescues
- Ukraine loses a key city to pro-Russian forces
- G7 countries announce ban on gold in Russia at the start of the summit
- Indonesia calls for peace talks
KIEV / POKROVSK, Ukraine, June 26 (Reuters) – Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Sunday, a day after a key eastern city fell to pro-Russian forces in a major setback for Ukraine and while world leaders gathered in Europe to discuss further sanctions against Moscow.
When Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II entered its fifth month, the Western alliance supporting Kyiv was beginning to show signs of tension. The UK said on Saturday it believed Ukraine could win, but feared it could be pressured for a “bad” peace deal.
Russian missiles hit the central Shevchenko district of Kyiv on Sunday morning, partially destroying a nine-story apartment building and causing a fire, city mayor Vitali Klitschko told the Telegram messaging app .
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“There are people under the rubble,” Klitschko said. He added that several people had already been hospitalized.
“The (rescuers) have taken out a seven-year-old girl. She is alive. Now they are trying to rescue her mother.”
At least five people were injured, the head of the Ukrainian police, Ihor Klymenko, told national television.
Life had returned to normal in Kyiv after strong resistance halted Russian advances in the first phase of the war, although sirens of airstrikes sounded regularly throughout the city.
There had been no major strikes in Kyiv since June.
Russia denies targeting civilians, but Ukraine and the West accuse Russian forces of war crimes in a conflict that has killed thousands, sent millions fleeing Ukraine and destroyed cities.
The key city on the eastern battlefield of Sievierodonetsk fell to pro-Russian forces on Saturday after Ukrainian troops withdrew, saying there was nothing left to defend the ruined city after months of fierce fighting.
The fall of Sievierodonetsk is a major defeat for Kyiv, as it seeks to maintain control of the eastern Donbas region, a key military target for the Kremlin.
Moscow says the Lubassk and Donetsk provinces of the Donbas, where it has supported the uprisings since 2014, are independent countries. It demands that Ukraine cede the entire territory of the two provinces to separatist administrations.
SUMMIT G7
Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, calling it a “special military operation” to ensure Russian security and de-Nazize Ukraine. Kyiv and the West say the invasion was nothing more than a land grab by Putin.
The war has had a major impact on the global economy and European security, driving up gas, oil and food prices, pushing the European Union to reduce dependence on Russian energy and caused Finland and Sweden to seek NATO membership.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said he would urge his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts to start a dialogue during a peace-building mission in countries at war and will ask Putin to order an immediate ceasefire.
“We need to stop the war and reactivate the world’s food supply chains,” Jokowi, as the president is popularly known, said before leaving to attend a Group of Seven (G7) summit that begins Sunday in Germany.
The United Nations has warned that a protracted war in Ukraine, one of the world’s leading grain exporters, threatens to provoke a global hunger crisis.
Seeking to tighten screws further in Russia, G7 countries announced a ban on imports of new gold from Russia as they began their summit in the Bavarian Alps.
“The measures we announced today will directly affect the Russian oligarchs and attack the heart of Putin’s war machine,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
NATO leaders will hold a summit on June 29-30 in Madrid.
‘IT WAS A HORROR’
The fall of Sievierodonetsk, formerly inhabited by more than 100,000 people but now a wasteland, transforms the battlefield to the east after weeks in which Moscow’s huge advantage in firepower had only yielded slow gains.
The Russian news agency Interfax quoted a representative of pro-Russian separatist fighters as saying that Russian and pro-Russian forces had also entered Lysychansk across the river.
The two cities were the last major cities occupied by Ukrainian forces in the east.
Zelenskiy promised on Saturday in a video address that Ukraine would regain the cities it lost, including Sievierodonetsk.
“We have no idea how long it will last, how many more times, losses and efforts will be needed before we see victory on the horizon,” he said.
Oleksiy Arestovych, Zelenskiy’s chief adviser, said some Ukrainian special forces were still in Sievierodonetsk directing artillery fire against the Russians. But he made no mention of the forces opposing any direct resistance. Read more
Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said Russian forces fired on Saturday from the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk, where hundreds of civilians had been trapped, and also bombed the villages of Pavlograd and Synetsky.
Both Ukraine and Russia have exchanged accusations of firing on Nitrogen, with Russian-backed separatists in the area saying the evacuations were halted due to Ukrainian bombing.
In the Ukrainian-controlled city of Pokrovsk in Donbas, Elena, an elderly Lysychansk woman in a wheelchair, was among dozens of evacuees who arrived by bus from the front-line areas.
“Lysychansk, it was a horror, last week. Yesterday we couldn’t stand it any longer,” he said. “I already told my husband that if I die, please bury me behind the house.”
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Reuters office reports; Written by Michael Perry and Alex Richardson; Editing by Edmund Klamann and David Clarke
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