Russia kills at least 15 in strikes on Kyiv, other cities

Straits Times

5 hours ago

Residents react at the site of an apartment building damaged during a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 17, 2025. PHOTO: REUTERS
Russia kills at least 15 in strikes on Kyiv, other cities
KYIV - Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine on June 17, hitting dozens of civilian targets in Kyiv including a large apartment block, killing at least 15 people and wounding scores, Ukrainian officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian forces directed more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine.
He described the destruction in Kyiv as among the 'most horrific' in the capital of the war.
'Such attacks are pure terrorism. The whole world, the United States, and Europe must finally respond as a civilized society responds to terrorists. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does this solely because he can afford to continue the war.'
About 27 locations in the capital were hit during several waves of attacks throughout the night, and residential buildings, educational institutions, and critical infrastructure facilities were damaged, officials said.
A ballistic missile struck a nine-storey residential building in Kyiv's Solomianskyi district, wiping out a whole section of it, which was flattened into a pile of debris.
Emergency workers were combing through the rubble and dousing the flames with hoses.
They used a crane to lower a wounded elderly woman in a stretcher out of the window of a flat in an adjacent section of the building.
'I have never seen anything like this before. It is simply horrific. When they started pulling people out, and everyone was cut up, elderly people and children... I do not know how long they can continue to torment us, ordinary people,' said Ms Viktoriia Vovchenko, 57, who lives nearby.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said 14 people were killed in Kyiv and one more in Odesa in southern Ukraine.
Nearly a hundred people were injured in the capital and the nearby region, Odesa, and Chernihiv in the north, officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the dead in the capital included a 62-year-old US citizen, who died from shrapnel wounds.
Ukraine has also launched drones deep into Russia, although its attacks have not caused similar damage to civilian targets.
Russia's Defence Ministry said it had intercepted and destroyed 147 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory, including the Moscow region, overnight.
Russia's full-scale invasion is now in its fourth year, and the hostilities have heated up in recent weeks as Kyiv and Moscow failed to reach any agreement during two rounds of peace talks in Istanbul.
Russian troops are pressing on with a grinding advance in eastern Ukraine and have opened a new front in the Sumy region in the north-east, despite calls for a ceasefire from US President Donald Trump, who promised to end the war quickly.
Mr Zelensky was in Canada to attend the Group of Seven summit, hoping to gather more support for tighter sanctions against Russia and continued military aid for Ukraine.
He had also hoped to meet US President Donald Trump to discuss weapons purchases, but Mr Trump left the G-7 summit a day early due to the situation in the Middle East, the White House said.
Mr Trump has reoriented US policy away from supporting Kyiv towards accepting Moscow's justifications for its invasion, and has so far resisted calls from European allies to impose tighter sanctions of Moscow for rejecting his calls for a ceasefire.
At the summit, Mr Trump called for the G-7 to readmit Russia, which was expelled in 2014 after an earlier attack on Ukraine. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.