Kyiv reels from new attack during U.N. chief’s visit
LVIV, Ukraine — Far from the war’s front lines, central and western Ukraine were on high alert Friday after Russian missiles rained down on the capital, Kyiv, killing at least one person and shattering a relative return to calm that saw the United Nations chief visit mass graves on the city’s outskirts.
In a video address overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the aerial attack Thursday near the center of Kyiv after his meeting with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was a sign of “Russia’s true attitude to global institutions” and would provoke “a strong response.”
“We still have to drive the occupiers out,” Zelenskyy said, citing recent bombings in the capital as well as in Fastiv — southwest of Kyiv — and Odesa, a strategic port city on the Black Sea that’s increasingly become a target of missiles, including one that struck a major bridge and railway link this week.
The shifting state of affairs in Ukraine, where Russia had telegraphed its intention to focus on the eastern Donbas region claimed by pro-Moscow separatists yet has continued to assault parts of the west and center, prompted the U.S., Britain and other NATO members to increase troops around Ukraine and pledge billions of additional dollars in humanitarian and military aid through the summer.
“We need to be prepared for the long term,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said late Thursday after President Joe Biden announced that he would ask Congress to approve $33 billion in new aid to Kyiv.
“There is absolutely the possibility that this war will drag on and last for months and years,” Stoltenberg said.
The British government said Friday that it would dispatch 8,000 troops over the summer to Eastern Europe for extended exercises to deter Russian aggression. The deployment is among the largest by the nation since the Cold War and will include training with thousands of troops from NATO and the Joint Expeditionary Force alliance, a group that includes Finland and Sweden, two non-NATO nations that this week were told their membership would be fast-tracked if they petitioned to join.
Britain also said Friday that it would send war crimes investigators to Ukraine, following reports of rape by Russian troops, the discovery of mass graves outside Kyiv and reports of additional mass burials outside Mariupol, a heavily bombarded southern city nearly under full Russian control.
“Russia has brought barbarity to Ukraine and committed vile atrocities, including against women. British expertise will help uncover the truth and hold [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s regime to account for its actions. Justice will be done,” said British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
As Kyiv cleaned up the aftermath of missiles that hit a commercial and residential neighborhood northwest of the presidential office, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that a body had been recovered from the rubble.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded news organization, said one of its workers, Vira Hyrych, was killed.
A former U.S. Marine from Tennessee has also died in the conflict while fighting in Ukraine with a military contracting company, his family told CNN.
“He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for,” Rebecca Cabrera said of her 22-year-old son, Willy Joseph Cancel.
In Mariupol, where authorities said 600 people — a mix of military and civilians — were surrounded by Russians in a vast steelworks that is Ukraine’s last holdout in the oncethriving city, another attempt at an evacuation was announced Friday.