Kyiv, June 26 (Reuters) – Russian missiles hit a residential building and the nursery grounds in central Kyiv on Sunday, killing one person and injuring five more, officials said as Moscow stepped up their airstrikes against Ukraine for the second day. .
Firefighters put out a fire in a heavily damaged nine-story residential building in the central district of Shevchenkivskiy, emergency services said. Ruins were scattered over cars parked outside a smoking building with a crater on the roof.
“The (rescuers) have taken out a seven-year-old girl. She is alive. Now they are trying to rescue her mother,” said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Register now for FREE and unlimited access to Reuters.com
Sign up
“There are people under the rubble,” Klitschko told Telegram’s messaging app. He added that several people had already been hospitalized.
Elsewhere about 400 meters away, a Reuters photographer saw a large explosion crater next to a playground in a private nursery that had broken windows. Some private warehouses in the area were completely destroyed.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had used high-precision weapons to attack Ukrainian army training centers in the Chernivtsi, Zhytomyr and Lviv regions, an apparent reference to the attacks reported by Ukraine on Saturday. Read more
There was no immediate comment on Sunday’s strikes in Kyiv. Moscow denies targeting civilians.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the Group of Seven countries to hold a three-day summit in Germany to impose more sanctions on Moscow and provide more heavy weapons.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force said between four and six long-range missiles were fired from Russian bombers more than a thousand kilometers away in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia, which overlooks the Caspian Sea.
He said some of the incoming missiles were shot down by Ukraine’s air defenses.
Up to four explosions shook the center of Kyiv early Sunday. Hours later, there were two more explosions in Kyiv, but there was no immediate sign of damage, suggesting that incoming missiles may have been shot down.
Ukrainian police chief Ihor Klymenko told national television that five people had been injured. Police later confirmed that one person had died.
“The Russians hit Kyiv again. The missiles damaged an apartment building and a nursery,” said Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s administration.
Explosions were also heard in the central city of Cherkasy, said regional governor Oleksandr Skichko.
The last major strike in Kyiv was on June 5 when a wagon repair facility was hit on the outskirts. In late April, a Radio Liberty producer was killed in a strike that hit the building where she lived. read more
The historic Shevchenkivskiy district is home to a number of universities, restaurants and art galleries.
Russia abandoned an early advance in Kyiv in the face of fierce resistance reinforced by Western weapons.
Since then, Moscow and its representatives have focused on the south and the Donbas, an eastern territory formed by Luhansk and its neighbor Donetsk, deploying overwhelming artillery in some of the most intense ground combat in Europe since World War II. World Cup. Read more
Register now for FREE and unlimited access to Reuters.com
Sign up
Report by Pavel Polityuk, Valentyn Ogirenko, Alessandra Prentice; Writing Lidia Kelly and Tom Balmforth; Edited by Michael Perry and David Clarke
Our standards: the principles of trust of Thomson Reuters.