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A Russian missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv overnight on Tuesday killed at least 14 people and wounded more than three dozen others, according to Ukrainian officials.
The attack is the latest in a series of mass drone and missile attacks on Kyiv. It came at a time when world leaders convened at the Group of Seven – or G7 – meeting in Canada, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to attend.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters at the scene that a US citizen was among those killed in the attacks after suffering shrapnel wounds from the blast. Explosions could be heard for hours throughout the night in the early hours of Tuesday.
Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block, according to Klymenko. He noted the death toll is likely to rise as emergency workers descended to the scene of a collapsed apartment building to search for bodies buried under the rubble.
People were wounded in the city’s Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts. Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said fires broke out in two other Kyiv districts as a result of falling debris from drones shot down by Ukrainian air defences.
Canada, which assumed the presidency of the G7 this year, invited Zelenskyy to the summit, where he is expected to hold one-on-one meetings with world leaders on Tuesday.
Zelenskyy was set to meet with US President Donald Trump in Canada on Tuesday, though the White House announced that Trump would be returning unexpectedly to Washington on Monday night instead of Tuesday due to rising tensions in the Middle East.
Russia has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks. Moscow escalated attacks after Ukraine’s Security Service agency executed an operation targeting war planes in air bases deep inside Russian territory.
The Ukrainian leader says little progress has emerged from direct peace talks held in Istanbul, with the exception of prisoner exchanges, expected to conclude next week.
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