Ukraine-Russia war latest: Four dead in first ‘massive’ Russian aerial attack on Kyiv since Putin met Trump

The death toll in a mass Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv has risen to four, local officials said.

Among the dead were two children, interior minister Ihor Klymenko said, citing preliminary information. The numbers are expected to rise. Rescue teams were on site to pull people trapped underneath the rubble.

Thursday’s attack is the first major combined Russian mass drone and missile attack to strike Kyiv since US president Donald Trump met with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Alaska earlier this month to discuss ending the three-year war in Ukraine.

The Kyiv city administration’s head Tymur Tkachenko said Russia launched decoy drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles in this attack, hitting at least 20 locations across seven districts of Kyiv.

Nearly 100 buildings were damaged, including a shopping mall in the city centre, and thousands of windows were shattered, he said.

A five-story residential building in the Darnytskyi district was hit directly. “Everything is destroyed,” Tkachenko said. A strike in central Kyiv left a major road strewn with shattered glass.

Russia has been accused of being “disrespectful” to the peace process in its war with Ukraine, with the Government saying it is dragging its feet over talks.

Downing Street said Vladimir Putin was blatantly stalling progress, less than a fortnight since the Russian president met with US President Donald Trump in Alaska.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, along with European leaders, met Mr Trump in Washington days after the Alaska meeting to get an update on the talks.

But as his remarks aired on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Russia’s top diplomat was making that prospect look unlikely — while walking back progress made between Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky and a host of European leaders in a whirlwind series of meetings over the past two weeks.

Vance told NBC’s Kristen Welker, in a pre-taped interview, that both sides had signaled their openness to accepting “significant concessions” in recent days, and said that the president was open to increasing pressure if one side was seen as an obstacle to peace.

My colleague John Bowden reports:

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said he spoke to Ukraine’s newly appointed ambassador to the US.

“I just spoke with Olha Stefanishyna – now Ukraine’s new Ambassador to the United States. The formal procedures are complete – today I signed the decree appointing the ambassador,” Zelensky said on X.

“I outlined the key tasks for reinvigorating the work of our Embassy, and the main thing is to fully implement the agreements reached in Washington, our agreements with President Trump, above all in the defence sphere. Much of Ukraine’s long-term security depends on relations with America,” the Ukrainian president said.

He said that there are two “strong” Ukrainian proposals at the moment. “An agreement on weapons for Ukraine, and an agreement on modern drones for the United States. We count on swift progress in our relations,” he said.

The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, was in Riyadh yesterday along with security council chief Rustem Umerov.

Yermak said the talks in Riyadh focused on paths to peace in Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia’s participation in this process.

The senior Ukrainian officials met the Saudi defence minister and national security adviser, Yermak said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking later in his nightly video address, said the delegation would hold talks today in Switzerland. They will then go on to New York tomorrow for talks with US officials.

Earlier this week, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that he would meet representatives from Ukraine in New York while saying that Washington continues to talk with Russia.

Zelensky said on Tuesday that Turkey, the Gulf states or European countries could host talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Iryna Zarutska, 23, was left with multiple stab wounds from the attack, which unfolded just before 10pm at the East/West Boulevard light rail station in South End, Charlotte, on Friday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said.

Zarutska had “recently arrived in the United States, seeking safety from the war and hoping for a new beginning,” according to a GoFundMe set up to support her family.

Isabel Keane reports from New York:

At least three people have been killed, including two children, in a wave of overnight Russian strikes targeting Kyiv, officials said in the early hours today.

At least 12 others were injured, they said.The city’s military administration put the death toll at three, with strikes recorded in widely separated districts of the city.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two children were also among the injured.

Officials provided a long list of buildings that had suffered damage, including several high-rise apartment blocks.

Photos posted online showed apartments ablaze and smoke billowing from buildings. The images could not immediately be verified.

Klitschko said two high-rise apartment buildings had been damaged in eastern suburbs of the city.

President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on Wednesday appointing Olha Stefanishyna, a former top cabinet minister, as Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States.

Zelensky, speaking in his nightly video address, said he had signed a decree on the appointment of Stefanishyna, 39, after formalities had been completed.

“I outlined the key tasks for reinvigorating the work of our embassy,” he said.

She takes over as ambassador from Oksana Markarova, who held the position for six years, including more than three years of full-scale war with Russia.

Zelensky singled out two agreements as critical — on providing weapons for Ukraine and on supplying drones to the United States.

“The main thing is to fully implement all the agreements reached in Washington, our agreements with President [Donald] Trump, above all in the defence sphere…Much of Ukraine’s long-term security depends on relations with America.”

Stefanishyna had served in Zelensky’s administration as a deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, playing a major role in the country’s integration into Western institutions, and as minister of justice.