Russia strikes Ukraine government building for first time in largest aerial assault of the war

Kyiv: Russia’s largest overnight air attack of the war set the main building of the Ukrainian government in Kyiv on fire and left three people dead, including a baby, whose body was pulled from the rubble, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.

Witnesses saw the top floor of the main building of the Ukrainian government, in the historic Pecherskyi district, burning, with thick smoke rising into the clear blue sky just after sunrise.

“For the first time, the government building was damaged by an enemy strike – its roof and upper floors,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram that Russia launched 805 drones into Ukraine overnight and 13 missiles, with Ukrainian defence units downing 751 drones and four missiles. That was the highest number of drones Russia has used to attack the country since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Timur Tkachenko, the head of the capital’s military administration, said the infant, who the BBC reported was a year old, was pulled from the rubble in the Darnytskyi district where a four-storey apartment building was damaged. A young woman also died as a result of the attack on the district, which lies to the east of the Dnipro River, he said.

State emergency officials said that 18 people were injured in the overnight attack, which sowed fires throughout the city.

Moscow did not immediately comment on the attacks. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the strikes, but thousands have died in the war.

Earlier, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said an elderly woman died in a bomb shelter in Darnytskyi and a pregnant woman was among those injured.

In the western district of Sviatoshynskyi, several floors of a nine-storey residential building were partially destroyed, Klitschko and emergency officials said.

Falling drone debris set off fires in a 16-storey apartment building and two more nine-storey buildings, the mayor said.

Svyrydenko called for more weapons for Ukraine and for the world to respond to the Russian attacks.

“We will rebuild the buildings,” Svyrydenko said. “But lost lives cannot be brought back. The enemy terrorises and kills our people across the country every day.”

Smoke billowed out of apartment buildings, some with floors partially collapsed and facades crumbled, in social media photographs posted by emergency officials.

Russia was “deliberately and consciously striking civilian targets”, Tkachenko said on Telegram.

Dozens of explosions also shook the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, cutting power to some areas and damaging a bridge across the Dnipro River, Mayor Vitalii Maletskyi said on Telegram.

Russian strikes on Kryvyi Rih in the same region targeted transport and urban infrastructure, Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the military administration, said on Telegram.

In the southern city of Odesa, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings were damaged and fires broke out in several apartment blocks, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.

For its part, the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Robert Brovdi, said it had attacked the Druzhba oil pipeline, which supplies Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, inflicting “comprehensive fire damage”.

As western Ukraine faced the threat of air attacks, Poland activated its and allied aircraft to ensure air safety, the operational command of the Polish armed forces said.

Reuters

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