Kyiv, Ukraine –
Russian rockets hit the Ukrainian capital early Sunday, hitting at least two apartment buildings and killing one person, the mayor of Kyiv said. The attack came when Western leaders met in Europe this week, ready to reaffirm their support for Ukraine and condemn Russia.
Associated Press reporters in Kyiv saw rescue services fighting the blaze and rescuing civilians. The strikes also damaged a nearby kindergarten, where a crater cut through the yard. Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat said the missiles were X-101 cruise missiles fired from planes over the Caspian Sea more than 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away.
Following conflicting early reports of casualties, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person was killed and six were injured, including a 7-year-old girl and her mother, whom he described as moderate.
Klitschko told reporters he thought the airstrikes were “perhaps a symbolic attack” ahead of Tuesday’s NATO summit in Madrid. The leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, including US President Joe Biden, were in Germany on Sunday for a meeting of the world’s largest economies.
Leaders had to announce new bans on Russian gold imports, the latest in a series of sanctions they hope will further isolate Russia economically. While standing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the host of the three-day meeting, Biden was asked about his reaction to the latest missile strikes on Kyiv.
“It’s more of their barbarism,” he replied.
The early morning Russian air strikes were the first to hit the capital successfully since June 5th. Two more explosions were heard later in Kyiv, but the cause was not immediately clear.
Ukrainian MP Alexei Goncharenko wrote in the Telegram news app that preliminary information indicated that Russia had fired 14 missiles at the capital region and Kyiv itself, suggesting that some had been intercepted.
In the city of Cherkasy, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kyiv, one person was killed and five were injured in strikes by two Russian missiles, said District Governor Igor Taburets.
The two embrace as they watch smoke rising from the air of apartment buildings after explosions in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday, June 26, 2022. Several explosions shook the western part of the Ukrainian capital in the early hours of Sunday morning, with at least two apartment buildings hit, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. (AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty)
A former commander of US forces in Europe has said the strikes on Kyiv were intended to humiliate Western leaders as they gather for G-7 and NATO summits.
“Russia says, ‘We can do this all day. You guys are powerless to stop us, “said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former U.S. military commander in Europe. “The Russians are humiliating Western leaders.”
In a telephone interview, Hodges said Russia had no bottomless stockpiles of precision missiles and that “if they use them, it will be for a special purpose.”
He said it was difficult to say with certainty whether the residential buildings had been deliberately aimed or the missiles had deflected.
Meanwhile, Russian troops fought to consolidate their profits in the eastern part of the country, fighting to swallow the last remaining Ukrainian fortress in Luhansk province. Luhansk Governor Sergei Haidai said on Sunday that Russia was launching intense air strikes on the city of Lisichansk, destroying its TV tower and severely damaging a road bridge.
“There is a lot of destruction. Lisichansk is almost unrecognizable, “he wrote on Facebook.
Lisichansk and the nearby city of Severodonetsk were the focal point of a Russian offensive aimed at seizing Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbass region and destroying Ukrainian troops defending territory not yet controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.
Haidai confirmed on Saturday that Severodonetsk, including a chemical plant where hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been sheltered, had fallen to Russian and separatist fighters.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said late Saturday that Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces now control Severodonetsk and surrounding villages. He said attempts by Ukrainian forces to turn the Nitrogen plant into a “stubborn center of resistance” had been thwarted.
The capture of Lisichansk will give Russian forces control of every major settlement in the province, a significant step towards Russia’s goal of capturing the entire Donbass. The Russians and separatists control about half of Donetsk, the second province in Donbass.
On Saturday, Russia also fired dozens of missiles at several areas across the country, far from the heart of the eastern battles. Some of the missiles were fired by Russian long-range Tu-22 bombers, deployed for the first time by Belarus, 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 the Iskander-M missile system to Belarus.
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