Ukraine’s Kyiv reels from attack during UN chief’s visit, as NATO beefs up forces
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 had seen the United Nations chief visiting 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. Secretarygeneral 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 Kyiv and Fastiv, southwest of the capital, as well as Odesa, a strategic port city on the Black Sea that has increasingly become a target of missiles, including one this week that struck a major bridge and railway link.
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 country’s west and center — prompted the U.S., Britain and other NATO members to add 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,” Jens Stoltenberg, secretarygeneral of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 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.”
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, an alliance 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 under neartotal 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.
On Friday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said Putin had accepted an invitation to participate in the G-20 summit planned for fall in Bali. Indonesia is the current chair of the Group of 20 nations.
“Indonesia wants to unite the G-20. Don’t let there be a split. Peace and stability are the keys to the recovery and development of the world economy,” Widodo said in a statement.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby grew emotional while speaking to reporters Friday about the war, in which Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian forces overseen by Putin.
“It’s difficult to look at some of the images and imagine that any wellthinking, serious, mature leader would do that,” Kirby said. “I can’t talk to his psychology, but I think we can all speak to his depravity.”
As Kyiv cleaned up after missiles 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-yearold son, Willy Joseph Cancel.
In Mariupol, where 600 people — a mix of military and civilians — were surrounded by Russians in a vast steelworks that is Ukraine’s last holdout in the once-thriving city, another attempt at an evacuation was announced Friday, authorities said. Several previous attempts to transport Ukrainians out of the Azovstal plant, including Russian offers to allow safe passage, have not materialized.
Speaking at a video news conference, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said that “if Mariupol is hell, Azovstal is worse.” He said those trapped were “begging to be saved.”
Boychenko said his city was “destroyed” but denied that it had fallen to Russia.
“Mariupol is holding,” he said.