KYIV: Russian attacks on Ukraine's capital killed at least nine people and wounded more than two dozen others, local officials said on Saturday, with strikes damaging homes and causing fires across the city.
A five-story residential building in the Solomianskyi District was damaged by falling debris with people believed to be still trapped inside and a fire in the courtyard, said Vitalii Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv in a post on Telegram.
People were also reportedly trapped in another residential building the Shevchenkivskyi district, after a partial collapse on the first and second floors, Klitschko said.
Elsewhere in the capital, warehouse buildings were on fire in the Darnytskyi district, he said.
The attack came just two days after a large-scale Russian ballistic missile and drone attack across Ukraine killed 10 civilians and wounded more than 50 others and saw a Russian missile enter Polish airspace.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing Ukraine’s need for more Patriot anti-ballistic missile defense systems to counter missile attacks from Russia with the U.S. and other Western partners.
Late Friday, the Ukrainian leader said he had spoken to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and discussed the meeting earlier this week in Washington with President Donald Trump which he described as “positive and productive.”
“The Russian air strikes on our country continue and air defense, specifically interceptors for Patriot systems against ballistic missiles, remains a top priority,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram Friday.
At a NATO summit in Ankara in July, Trump said the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to make Patriot systems but he appeared to move away from that commitment on Friday during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, saying he had not yet made a final decision on the matter.