Four killed in Kyiv in new Russian aerial attack

At least nine people were killed and several injured in a Russian missile and drone attack in the Kyiv region in the early hours of Monday morning, the interior minister said.

In a post on social media, Ihor Klymenko said residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure had been hit.

At least six of those killed were in a high-rise building in the capital, Kyivs mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The citys military administration said a further 33 people had been injured.

In the latest barrage, 352 Russian drones and 16 missiles targeted Ukrainian territory, mostly in the Kyiv area, the Ukrainian air force said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to London on Monday for talks with PM Keir Starmer on UK military support for Ukraine.

One Kyiv resident, Valeriy Mankuta, 33, said he "woke up in the rubble" after his building was hit by what authorities said was a missile. He escaped his apartment by climbing out of the window.

"There were bricks on me, there was something in my mouth. It was total hell," he told Reuters news agency.

Another resident, Natalia Marshavska, described hearing a drone buzzing above her apartment before it exploded. The force of the blast threw her across the room, shattering the windows, she told AFP news agency.

Smoke began billowing everywhere, she said, adding: "It was horrible."

Russia has intensified its air attacks against Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, sending large waves of missiles, drones and decoys designed to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences.

It is a tactic that Ukrainian forces are struggling to defend against.

Many thousands of Kyiv residents were forced into the shelters in the early hours of Monday morning as drones flew overhead and explosions shook the city.

Ukraines emergencies service shared footage showing shocked residents being led away from a destroyed high-rise building that was still burning.

The entrance to one of Kyivs metro stations - where people regularly take shelter - was damaged, and classrooms and dormitories at one of the citys universities were also hit.

Separately, one person reportedly died after a drone struck a hospital in the city of Bila Tserkva just outside the capital.

On Monday, an attack on the southern Odesa region killed two people and wounded a dozen more, local authorities said.

Zelensky said a school in the area was hit and almost completely destroyed.

"None of these Russian strikes are accidental - the Russian army knows exactly where it is targeting," he posted on X.

Speaking to reporters this week in the capital, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky vowed to step up Ukrainian strikes on Russia.

"We will not just sit in defence because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories," he said.

It comes as the capital is still reeling from Russian attacks last week which left at least 28 people dead and more than 100 injured.

The attack was among the biggest on the capital since the start of Russias full-scale war which began in February 2022.

Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war have stalled. The last direct talks between the two sides finished almost three weeks ago with agreement only on limited exchanges of prisoners and the bodies of the dead.

No new talks have been scheduled.

Zelensky had been due to meet Donald Trump on the side lines of the G7 conference last week, but the meeting was cancelled after Trump left the conference early amid the escalating crisis in the Middle East.

The Ukrainian leader is due to attend a dinner during a Nato summit in the Netherlands that begins on Tuesday.