Russia strikes Kyiv as leaders meet
Russia shattered weeks of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital with long-range missiles fired toward Kyiv early Sunday, an apparent Kremlin show- of-force as Western leaders meet in Europe to strengthen their military and economic support of Ukraine.
Kyiv Mayor Vital i Klitschko said the missiles hit at least two residential buildings, and President Volodymr Zelenskyy said a 37-year- old man was killed and his 7-year- old daughter and wife injured. Associated Press journalists saw emergency workers battling flames and rescuing civilians.
The strikes also damaged a nearby kindergarten, where a crater pocked the courtyard. U. S. President Joe Biden called the attacks “barbarism” after he arrived in Germany for a Group of Seven summit.
Later Sunday, a local official reported a second death, telling the Unian news agency that a railroad worker was killed and several others were injured in the attacks while servicing rail infrastructure.
Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said the first air-launched weapons successfully to target the capital since June 5 were Kh-101 cruise missiles fired from warplanes over the Caspian Sea, more than 932 miles away.
Kyiv’s mayor told journalists he thought the airstrikes were “maybe a symbolic attack” ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid that starts Tuesday. A former commander of U. S. forces in Europe said the strikes also were a signal to the leaders of G-7 nations meeting Sunday in Germany.
“Russia is saying, ‘ We can do this all day long. You guys are powerless to stop us,’” retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U. S. Army forces in Europe, said. “The Russians are humiliating the leaders of the West.”
The G-7 leaders were set to announce the latest in a long series of international economic steps to pressure and isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine: new bans on imports of Russian gold. Standing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the three- day meeting’s host, Biden said of the missile strikes on Kyiv: “It’s more of their barbarism.”
Zelenskyy, speaking in his nightly video address, appealed to the G-7 leaders for more help, saying stopping Russian aggression “is possible only if we get everything we ask for, and in the time we need it — weapons, financial support and sanctions against Russia.”
A Ukrainian parliament member, Oleksiy Goncharenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that preliminary information indicated that Russia launched 14 missiles toward the capital region and Kyiv itself. Zelenskyy said some were intercepted, and he vowed revenge against “all pilots, dispatchers, technicians and other people who ensure the launch of missiles in Ukraine.”
“We will find you all.
Each of you will be responsible for these blows,” Zelenskyy vowed. “And if someone thinks he will evade responsibility by saying that this was an order, you are wrong.
“When your missiles hit homes, it’s a war crime. The court is what awaits you all. And you will not hide anywhere — neither on the shores of the Caspian Sea, over which your missiles are launched, nor in Belarus ... Nowhere.”
In a phone interview, retired U. S. general Hodges told The Associated Press that Russia has a limited stock of precision missiles and “if they are using them, it’s going to be for a special purpose,”
Russia has denied targeting civilians during the 4-month- old war, and Hodges said it was hard to know if the missiles launched Sunday were intended to strike the apartments buildings.
Russian forces tried to seize control of Kyiv early in the war. After Ukrainian troops repelled them, the Kremlin largely shifted its focus to southern and eastern Ukraine.
Russian rocket strikes in the city of Cherkasy, about 100 miles southeast of Kyiv, killed one person and injured five, regional governor Ihor Taburets said Sunday.
In the east, Russian troops fought to consolidate their gains by battling to swallow up the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Luhansk province.