By Pavel Polityuk and Valentyn Ogirenko
KYIV (Reuters) -A Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed one man and injured three other people overnight, causing damage and fires in several districts in the biggest such attack on Ukraine for weeks, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.
The strike was the first large-scale attack using missiles and drones since the U.S. said late last month it had negotiated two ceasefire accords with Russia and Ukraine, including one that would halt strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said ongoing attacks showed Russia did not want to end the three-year-old war.
“Such attacks are Putin’s response to all international diplomatic efforts. Each of our partners – America, the whole of Europe, the whole world – has seen that Russia is going to continue to fight and kill,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.
In a separate statement he said that he had instructed the defence and foreign ministers to intensify talks with partners, especially the U.S., on the supply of air defence equipment.
Russian forces used ballistic and cruise missiles launched from both strategic bombers and naval fleets, as well as drones, during the overnight attack, Ukraine’s air force said.
Zelenskiy called for increased manufacturing of air defence systems and missiles, suggesting that such production should be established in Ukraine.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, posted a video of firefighters trying to put out fires at badly damaged buildings.
Zelenskiy said that over the past week, Russia had launched more than 1,460 guided aerial bombs, nearly 670 attack drones and more than 30 missiles of various types against Ukraine.
He said Kyiv was waiting for U.S. reaction to Putin’s refusal to agree to Washington’s proposal to establish a full ceasefire, which Ukraine had previously agreed to.
POLAND ON HIGH ALERT
Warnings from the air force of an attack including regions bordering Poland forced the neighbouring NATO-member country to scramble aircraft to ensure air safety.
Poland has been on high alert for objects entering its airspace since a stray Ukrainian missile struck the southern Polish village of Przewodow in 2022, killing two people.
In Kyiv, several loud explosions were heard overnight.
Fires broke out in at least three districts of Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post.
“The body of a man killed in an enemy attack was found in Darnytskiy district (of Kyiv). He was on the street, near the epicentre of the explosion,” Klitschko said.
The Sunday strikes on Kyiv came after officials in the southern region of Mykolaiv reported three people had been injured in Russian strikes. A day earlier, a Russian attack killed at least 19 people including nine children in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.
There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia started with a full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour. Thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who took office in January after pledging he would end the war in 24 hours, has sought to broker an end to the conflict.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Valentyn Ogirenko in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Helen Popper, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Alexandra Hudson)
