Kyiv blitzed by Russian missiles as revenge for raids

Volodymyr Zelensky urged European leaders to hand over dozens more air-defence systems on Thursday after at least 17 people were injured in a Russian missile barrage against Kyiv.

Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down all 31 hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles that were launched at the capital for the first time in more than a month.

Residential buildings, medical facilities and businesses were damaged as the burning debris of the intercepted projectiles were rained down on the city.

Moscow had vowed revenge for a recent spate of cross-border attacks on Russian border regions and also coincided with the two-year anniversary since the liberation of the Kyiv region in the early days of the war.

Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, said on Thursday some missile fragments had landed on a nursery in the capital, which was empty at the time.

In the residential Lukyanivka neighbourhood of Kyiv, the strikes left a deep crater in the street.

Windows were smashed and cars left ruined as the shockwaves from the nearby blast reverberated outwards.

Images from the Ukrainian capital later showed members of a bomb disposal unit grappling with part of a Russian missile that had crashed to the ground.

The missiles had rained down on the city from different directions, with air alerts lasting for nearly three hours, said Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration.

“All the air defence provided to Ukraine, in particular by European countries, keeps our cities and villages safe,” Mr Zelensky told a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels via video link.

“But the existing air defence systems are not enough to protect our entire territory from Russian territory. And it’s not a matter of hundreds of systems, but of an achievable number – to protect all the territory of Ukraine.

“You all know what steps need to be taken,” he added.

Kyiv’s European allies have supplied US-made Patriots, German Iris-T and the Franco-Italian Samp/T air defence systems.

But Ukrainian officials have warned its forces will soon have to start rationing interceptor ammunition and take decisions over what Russian missiles to shoot down because of shortages.

On Thursday, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said three people had been killed in “massive strikes” involving air attacks and ground attacks by armed groups from Ukraine.

Three anti-Kremlin militias fighting for Kyiv told reporters in Kyiv that the week-long cross-border raids were continuing.

Denis Nikitin, the commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, one of the groups involved, told the new conference his forces had captured 37 Russian soldiers that now wanted to switch allegiances to oppose Vladimir Putin during the operation.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, EU leaders were discussing plans to raise €3 billion a year to buy Kyiv weapons by using the earnings from frozen Russian assets.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz backed the scheme, but senior EU diplomats warned opposition from a number of member states, including Hungary, Cyprus and Malta, meant an agreement would not be found immediately.

EU leaders called for new sanctions against Iran, Belarus and North Korea for supplying Moscow with weapons used to target civilians on the first day of their summit in Brussels.

It warned that Tehran “may transfer ballistic missiles and related technology to Russia for use against Ukraine after having supplied the Russian regime with unmanned aerial vehicles, which are used in relentless attacks against the civilian population in Ukraine.”

It came as Russia’s defence ministry boasted that it had started the mass production of three-tonne high-explosive aerial bombs.

Moscow’s air force has been using the powerful munitions, which are converted Soviet-era bombs, to devastating effect because they can be dropped outside of the range of Ukraine’s air-defence systems.

And in a battle of their own, EU leaders clashed over their own radical plans to boost defence spending by common debt at a time when many European capitals are increasingly worried by the prospect of facing a wider conflict with Russia.

Diplomats said France’s Emmanuel Macron wanted to use so-called European Defence Bonds to pay for the largest rearmament of Europe since the end of the Cold War.

But Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands came out in opposition to using debts to cover for EU states not hitting defence spending targets set by Nato.