At least 18 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and dozens hurt in one of Russia’s biggest aerial bombardments of Kyiv, drawing condemnation from European leaders and calls for the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table to agree an end to its invasion.
Officials said four children were among those killed as Russia targeted Ukraine’s capital and other cities with 598 drones and 31 ballistic and cruise missiles, damaging scores of residential and office buildings in Kyiv including the headquarters of the European Union mission and the British Council cultural organisation.
The EU and the British foreign office summoned the Russian ambassadors in Brussels and London, as rescue workers in Kyiv searched through the rubble of damaged and demolished buildings to find any further victims of the attack.
“The Russians are not choosing to end the war, only new strikes. Overnight in Kyiv, dozens of buildings were damaged: residential houses, office centres, civilian enterprises,” said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
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“It is crucial now that the world responds firmly. Russia must stop this war it started and continues. For the spurning of ceasefire and for the constant Russian attempts to weasel out of negotiations, new strong sanctions are needed. Only this can work. The Russians understand only strength and pressure. For every strike, Moscow must feel the consequences.”
Kyiv is deeply frustrated by US president Donald Trump’s repeated failure to go through with threats to increase pressure on Russian president Vladimir Putin over his refusal to agree to a ceasefire or a top-level peace summit to end his 3½-year full-scale invasion of pro-western Ukraine.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she spoke to Mr Zelenskiy and Mr Trump and pledged that “Russia’s strikes on Kyiv will only strengthen Europe’s unity and Ukraine’s defiance”.
“Putin must come to the negotiating table. We must secure a just and lasting peace for Ukraine with firm and credible security guarantees that will turn the country into a ‘steel porcupine’. Europe will fully play its part,” she added.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz said “Russia showed its true face again” with one of its biggest aerial strikes on Kyiv.
“We condemn the severe attacks against the civilian population in the strongest terms. The fact that the EU representation has now also come under fire testifies to the growing ruthlessness of the Russian regime,” he added.
Despite claims of success from the White House, Mr Trump’s Alaska summit with Mr Putin this month failed to deliver any obvious diplomatic breakthrough.
Mr Zelenskiy and several European leaders met Mr Trump in Washington three days after the summit, and secured agreement that the US would help with “co-ordination” and possibly air support for a European-led peacekeeping force in Ukraine if fighting came to an end.
Talks on this and other security guarantees for Ukraine are now taking place almost every day between Ukrainian, US and European officials, and on Friday Mr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, is expected to hold meetings in New York.
Russia has not publicly offered any concessions, however, and continues to demand that Ukraine permanently hand over occupied territory, abandon its bid to join Nato and accept other restrictions on its sovereignty, including on the size of its military.
“The ‘special military operation’ continues. You can see that strikes on Russian infrastructure – often on Russian civilian infrastructure – by the Kyiv regime are also continuing. The Russian armed forces are also carrying out their tasks,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“At the same time, Russia remains interested in continuing the negotiation process in order to achieve our goals through political and diplomatic means.”
