Ukraine slams attack on Kyiv amid Mariupol rescue effort
The strikes were the boldest Russian bombardment of the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago
KYIV: Ukraine’s leader accused Russia of trying to humiliate the United Nations by raining missiles on Kyiv during a visit by secretary-general Antonio Guterres, an attack that shattered the capital’s tentative return to normality as the focus of the war moved east.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s forces were holding off Russia’s attempted advance in the south and east, as efforts continued to secure safe passage for residents trapped in Mariupol, which has been largely reduced to rubble in a 2-month-long siege. An official in the president’s office did not rule out an evacuation as soon as Friday.
Russia pounded targets all over Ukraine on Thursday, including the attack on Kyiv that struck a residential highrise and another building. US-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said its journalist Vira Hyrych, who lived in one of the buildings hit, died. Her body was found in the rubble on Friday.
Ten people were wounded in the attack, including at least one who lost a leg, according to Ukraine’s emergency services.
In an apparent reference to the same strike, Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that it had destroyed “production buildings” at the Artem defence factory in Kyiv.
The attack on Kyiv came barely an hour after Zelensky held a news conference with Guterres, who toured some of the destruction in and around Kyiv and condemned attacks on civilians during his visit.
“This says a lot about Russia’s true attitude towards global institutions, about attempts of Russian authorities to humiliate the UN and everything that the organization represents,” Zelensky said in an overnight video address to the nation. “Therefore, it requires corresponding powerful reaction.”
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko derided the attack as equivalent to Russian President Vladimir Putin showing Guterres “his middle finger”.
The strikes were the boldest Russian bombardment of the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago following their failure to take the city in what they hoped would be a lightning offensive. Instead, stiff Ukrainian resistance, bolstered by Western arms, stalled Putin’s advance and forced his troops to pull back to regroup.
Some have now started to push into the country’s eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas, which Moscow now says is its focus. Getting a full picture of the unfolding battle in the east has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around. Both Ukraine and the Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east also have introduced tight restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.
But so far, Russia’s troops and the separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains, and Britain’s defence ministry said on Friday that those have been achieved at significant cost to Russia’s forces.
One aim of Guterres’ visit was to secure the evacuation of people from the ruined southern port city of Mariupol, including a shattered steelworks where Ukrainian defenders are holed up and hundreds of civilians are also sheltering, Previous evacuation attempts have collapsed.
“I cannot confirm the exact details of the operation to make sure it is done with safety for our people and for civilians stranded in Mariupol” said Saviano Abreu, a spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian office.
An official in Zelensky’s office said negotiations were under way with UN mediation, and did not rule out an evacuation of the plant happening on Friday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Mariupol has seen some of the most dramatic suffering of the war. Under siege since the early days of the invasion, many of its residents became trapped with scarce access to food, water, medicine or electricity.
An estimated 100,000 people are believed to still be in the city, and the city council warned Thursday that a lack of safe drinking water or a working sewer system could lead to outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and dysentery. It added that bodies lay decaying under the rubble.