Russia strikes Kyiv metro entrance as civilians shelter inside

Telegraph

3 days ago

Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital killed at least one person and left parts of the city heavily damaged, including a school and the entrance to a metro station where residents were sheltering to keep safe.
Four of Kyiv's districts were attacked on Monday morning, with reports of burning residential buildings, a kiosk and a kindergarten, according to Vitali Klitschko, the city's mayor.
The entrance to the Lukianivska metro station was also damaged by missiles and drones as residents shielded inside. Emergency services said smoke spread underground, with footage showing the makeshift bomb shelter being filled with fumes.
Oleh Synehubov, the governor of Kharkiv, reported multiple explosions in the country's second-largest city, but gave no immediate details on the damage.
It was the latest in a series of escalating attacks by Russia targeting densely populated civilian areas. Moscow has been known to launch repeated attacks on the same area once emergency services have arrived.
In Moscow, a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack forced thousands of passengers to wait in lines or sleep on the floor at airports with a number of flights being delayed or cancelled.
Videos published by Russian media showed people sleeping on the floor of Sheremetyevo, Russia's busiest airport by passenger numbers, amid long queues.
Russia's defence ministry said it had downed 117 drones overnight, including 30 over the Moscow region, forcing restrictions on flights at Moscow's main airports – Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovskiy.
Ukraine's air force meanwhile said Russia had launched 426 drones and 24 missiles in Monday's attack. It downed or jammed 224 drones and missiles, while another 203 drones disappeared from radars, most likely having been jammed by electronic warfare, the air force said.
The renewed attacks came after Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said he had proposed a new round of talks with Moscow this week.
The two sides have already held two rounds of direct negotiations in Istanbul but have so far been unable to make any meaningful progress beyond exchanging prisoners and repatriating the dead.
The UK announced on Sunday that along with Germany it would launch a '50-day drive' to arm Ukraine and force Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, into peace.
'As members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, we need to step up in turn with a '50-day drive' to arm Ukraine on the battlefield and force Putin to the negotiating table,' John Healey, the Defence Secretary, is expected to say on Monday.
The Kremlin said on Sunday it was open to peace but insisted achieving its goals remained a priority after Donald Trump, the US president, gave Moscow a 50-day deadline to agree to peace and confirmed the US would send billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Ukraine via Nato, including Patriot air defence missiles.
Putin has 'repeatedly spoken of his desire to bring the Ukrainian settlement to a peaceful conclusion as soon as possible. This is a long process, it requires effort, and it is not easy,' a spokesperson for the Russian president said.
'The main thing for us is to achieve our goals,' he said. 'Our goals are clear.'
The Kremlin has insisted that any peace deal should see Ukraine withdraw from the four regions that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022 – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia – but never fully captured.
It also wants Ukraine to renounce its bid to join Nato and accept strict limits on its armed forces, demands Kyiv and its Western allies have rejected.