Latest news with #Klitschko
Irish Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Flags at half mast in Kyiv as death toll from Russian strike reaches 28
Flags across Kyiv were lowered to half-mast on Wednesday, as Ukrainians mourned more than two dozen people killed a day earlier in Russia's deadliest strike on the capital this year. Russia sent 440 drones and fired 32 missiles during the overnight attack, said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy , partly flattening a residential building, in the latest blow to a war-weary population as diplomatic efforts to end the grinding conflict bear little fruit. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Wednesday the death toll had reached 28, but that a search operation was continuing. Two people were also killed in a separate strike on the southern port city of Odesa. Residents visited the site of the partly destroyed apartment building, where rescue workers dug through chunks of debris amid the din of heavy machinery. READ MORE 'That kind of nation has no right to exist and bring such suffering to people,' said Alla Martyniuk (46), referring to Russians. Ukrainian officials said about 27 locations in Kyiv, including educational institutions and critical infrastructure, had been hit during the multi-wave attack. Scores more people were wounded. Russia's defence ministry said it had used air, land and sea-based missiles and drones to strike 'objects of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine' in the Kyiv region and southern Zaporizhzhia province. Moscow has stepped up drone and missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks as talks to end the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, have yielded few results. Mr Zelenskiy left the Group of Seven summit in Canada on Tuesday saying diplomacy was in 'crisis' after having missed the chance to press US president Donald Trump for more weapons. Kyiv is eager for critical aid from Washington, which has been its biggest military backer during the war, but the Trump administration has not announced any new packages. The G7 wealthy nations struggled to find unity over the conflict in Ukraine after Mr Trump expressed support for Russian president Vladimir Putin and left a day early to address the Israel-Iran conflict from Washington. A Canadian official initially said Ottawa had dropped plans for the G7 to issue a strong statement on the war in Ukraine after resistance from the United States. Prime minister Mark Carney's director of media relations later said no proposed statement on Ukraine had ever been planned. Mr Carney had started the day by announcing Ottawa would provide C$2 billion (€1.28 billion) in new military assistance for Kyiv and would impose new financial sanctions. In a post on Telegram, Mr Zelenskiy said he told the G7 leaders that 'diplomacy is now in a state of crisis' and they need to continue calling on Mr Trump 'to use his real influence' to force an end to the war. Although Canada is one of Ukraine's most vocal defenders, its ability to help it is far outweighed by the US, the largest arms supplier to Kyiv. Mr Zelenskiy had said he hoped to talk to Mr Trump about acquiring more weapons. After the summit in the Rocky Mountain resort area of Kananaskis concluded, Mr Carney issued a chair statement summarising deliberations. 'G7 leaders expressed support for President Trump's efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,' it said. 'They recognized that Ukraine has committed to an unconditional ceasefire, and they agreed that Russia must do the same. G7 leaders are resolute in exploring all options to maximize pressure on Russia, including financial sanctions.' Canada holds the rotating G7 presidency this year. Other leaders do not need to sign off on G7 chair statements. A European official said leaders had stressed to Mr Trump their plans to be hard on Russia and the US president seemed impressed, though he does not like sanctions in principle. Three European diplomats said they had heard signals from Mr Trump that he wanted to raise pressure on Putin and consider a US Senate bill drafted by senator Lindsey Graham, but that he had not committed to anything. 'I am returning to Germany with cautious optimism that decisions will also be made in America in the coming days to impose further sanctions against Russia,' German chancellor Friedrich Merz said. Upon arriving at the summit, Mr Trump said that the then-Group of Eight had been wrong to expel Russia after Putin ordered the occupation of Crimea in 2014. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Mr Trump was right and said the G7 was no longer significant for Russia and looked 'rather useless.' —Reuters
Reuters
5 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Kyiv mourns as death toll from Russian strike climbs to 28
KYIV, June 18 (Reuters) - Flags across Kyiv were lowered to half-mast on Wednesday, as Ukrainians mourned more than two dozen people killed a day earlier in Russia's deadliest strike on the capital this year. Russia sent 440 drones and fired 32 missiles during the overnight attack, said President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, partly flattening a residential building, in the latest blow to a war-weary population as diplomatic efforts to end the grinding conflict bear little fruit. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Wednesday the death toll had reached 28, but that a search operation was continuing. Two people were also killed in a separate strike on the southern port city of Odesa. Residents visited the site of the partly destroyed apartment building, where rescue workers dug through chunks of debris amid the din of heavy machinery. A Reuters correspondent saw two bodies being removed from the rubble. "That kind of nation has no right to exist and bring such suffering to people," said Alla Martyniuk, 46, referring to Russians. Ukrainian officials said about 27 locations in Kyiv, including educational institutions and critical infrastructure, had been hit during the multi-wave attack. Scores more people were wounded. Russia's defence ministry said it had used air, land and sea-based missiles and drones to strike "objects of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine" in the Kyiv region and southern Zaporizhzhia province. Moscow has stepped up drone and missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks as talks to end the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, have yielded few results. Zelenskiy left the Group of Seven summit in Canada on Tuesday saying diplomacy was in "crisis" after having missed the chance to press U.S. President Donald Trump for more weapons. Kyiv is eager for critical aid from Washington, which has been its biggest military backer during the war, but the Trump administration has not announced any new packages. Sofiia Holovatenko, 21, who lives nearby, came to lay flowers at the site, where residents had created makeshift memorials that included children's toys. "It shocks me, especially when it happens near your home. You just can't ignore this."
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv kills at least 16 people
Russia launched a sustained missile and drone attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 100 in what the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, called 'one of the most horrific attacks' on the Ukrainian capital since the full-scale war began in spring 2022. Officials warned that the death toll from one of the deadliest Russian attacks on Kyiv this year could rise, as rescue operations continue. At a nine-storey Soviet-era apartment block in the west of Kyiv, an apparent direct missile hit had led to part of the building collapsing, leaving a gaping hole and a pile of rubble in the middle of the block. Thirty apartments were destroyed in the strike, said the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, surveying the scene. 'There could be people under the rubble, and we can't exclude that the number of dead may rise,' he said. It was not clear how many people had been inside the building when the missile hit and there were conflicting reports of death tolls. As dawn broke, hundreds of rescue workers were attempting to clear the rubble at the site and rescue those stuck in neighbouring apartments. Shops and buildings within a radius of two blocks also suffered damage and smashed windows. The interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said: 'A ballistic missile had a direct hit on a nine-storey apartment building, a section is destroyed, and is destroyed right down to the basement because it was a direct hit.' Wave after wave of drone attacks could be heard during the night, with the air raid siren active for several hours and thousands of Kyiv residents sheltering in metro stations. The sounds reverberated from buildings across the city as air defence units tried to fend off the attacks. As the city came back to life on Tuesday morning, there was a burning smell in the air of central Kyiv and a cloud of dark smoke hung over the outskirts. 'Kyiv has faced one of the most horrific attacks,' Zelenskyy wrote on Facebook. 'Right now in Kyiv, efforts are under way to rescue people from under the rubble of an ordinary residential building – it's still unclear how many remain trapped.' Speaking at the G7 in Canada, the Ukrainian president said he had been kept in touch about the scale of the attack as he flew to the summit, where he had hoped to meet Donald Trump to make a direct appeal to the US president about the need to impose much deferred US sanctions on Russia. As he met the G7 host, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, Zelenskyy made no direct reference to Trump's decision to leave the summit a day early, so avoiding a meeting with the Ukrainian leader. But, looking downbeat, he said: 'We need the help of our allies for our soldiers to stay strong until Russia is ready for peace negotiations.' He stressed: 'We are ready for an unconditional ceasefire.' Some Ukrainian diplomats are privately furious at Trump's snub, even saying they are not sure it is worth the Ukrainian president turning up to the Nato summit in The Hague next week. One official said: 'It is an occupational hazard that Ukraine is a victim of events and Trump's attention span. Putin knows that, which is why there may have been such a large attack last night. There had been all sorts of promises, including new arms deliveries being offered.' Russia has launched almost nightly attacks on Ukraine over more than three years of full-scale war, but direct hits on Kyiv are rare, as the capital is well protected by air defence systems. Moscow has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks, partly in apparent revenge for an audacious Ukrainian drone operation that targeted long-range bombers stationed at bases deep inside Russia. Related: Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv under Russian drone attack with apartment building hit Overnight, Russian drone strikes also struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, the head of the regional administration. US-led attempts to start a peace process have largely failed, with Russia ignoring Trump's demands to agree to a full ceasefire before talks begin. Direct talks in Istanbul have produced little in the way of progress and there is no sign that Russia is willing to abandon its maximalist war aims. Zelenskyy had been hoping that the G7 summit would represent a golden chance to apply collective western pressure on Trump to accept a cut in the oil cap from $60 a barrel to $45 in an effort to reduce Russian oil revenues. The oil price cap requiring complex enforcement was introduced by the G7 nations and it would need at least tacit US support to be reduced effectively. In discussions on Monday at the summit, Trump expressed his reluctance to impose any further sanctions on Russia, saying Europeans should 'do it first' and that 'sanctions cost us a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars'. Meanwhile, Russia is deepening its ties with North Korea, the secretive state that is emerging as one of Moscow's main allies in its war on Ukraine. On Tuesday, Sergei Shoigu, Putin's top security adviser, made his third visit in as many months to Pyongyang, where he announced that North Korea would send thousands of construction workers to help rebuild Russia's Kursk region. The Russian state news agency, Tass, cited Shoigu as saying: 'Chairman Kim Jong-un has decided to send 1,000 sappers to Russia to de-mine Russian territory, as well as 5,000 military construction workers to rebuild infrastructure facilities destroyed by the occupiers.' North Korea has previously sent more than 10,000 troops to support Russian efforts to retake the Kursk region, parts of which had been seized by Ukrainian forces. It has also transferred conventional weapons to aid Moscow's war effort, while western intelligence believes Pyongyang may be seeking Russian technological assistance to advance its nuclear weapons programme.
Arab News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Overnight Russian attack on Ukraine kills 15 and injures 156
KYIV: An overnight Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed 15 people and injured 156, local officials said Tuesday, with the main barrage demolishing a nine-story Kyiv apartment building in the deadliest attack on the capital this year. At least 14 people were killed as explosions echoed across the Ukrainian capital for almost nine hours, Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said, destroying dozens of apartments. Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, calling the Kyiv attack 'one of the most terrifying strikes' on the capital. Ukraine's Interior Ministry said 139 people were injured in Kyiv. Mayor Vitalii Klitschko announced that Wednesday would be an official day of mourning. The attack came after two rounds of direct peace talks failed to make progress on ending the war, now in its fourth year. Russia steps up aerial attacks Russia has repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine with missiles and drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. Russia says it strikes only military targets. Russia has in recent months stepped up its aerial attacks. It launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine on June 10 in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the war. Russia also pounded Kyiv on April 24, killing at least 12 people. The intensified long-range strikes have coincided with a Russian summer offensive on eastern and northeastern sections of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where Ukraine is short-handed and needs more military support from its Western partners. Uncertainty about US policy on the war has fueled doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on. Zelensky had been set to meet with US President Donald Trump at a G7 summit in Canada on Tuesday to press him for more help. But Trump returned early to Washington on Monday night because of tensions in the Middle East. Ukraine tries to keep the world's attention Zelensky is seeking to prevent Ukraine from being sidelined in international diplomacy. Trump said earlier this month it might be better to let Ukraine and Russia 'fight for a while' before pulling them apart and pursuing peace, but European leaders have urged him to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into accepting a ceasefire. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday it is unclear when another round of talks might take place. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia's attacks during the G7 summit showed Putin's 'total disrespect' for the US and other countries. 'Russia not only rejects a ceasefire or a leaders' meeting to find solutions and end the war. It cynically strikes Ukraine's capital while pretending to seek diplomatic solutions,' Sybiha wrote on social media. Ukrainian forces have hit back against Russia with their own domestically produced long-range drones. The Russian military said it downed 203 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported briefly halting flights overnight in and out of all four Moscow airports, as well as those in the cities of Kaluga, Tambov and Nizhny Novgorod as a precaution. Overnight Russian drone strikes also struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the regional administration. Putin 'is doing this simply because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it,' Zelensky said. Russian attack demolishes apartment building The Russian attack delivered 'direct hits on residential buildings,' the Kyiv City Military Administration said in a statement. 'Rockets — from the upper floors to the basement,' it said. A US citizen died in the attack after suffering shrapnel wounds, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters. Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block after it was struck by a ballistic missile, Klymenko said. 'We have 27 locations that were attacked by the enemy. We currently have over 2,000 people working there, rescuers, police, municipal services and doctors,' he told reporters at the scene of one attack. Olena Lapyshniak, 49, was shaken from the strike that nearly leveled her apartment building. She heard a whistling sound and then two explosions that blew out her windows and doors. 'It's horrible, it's scary, in one moment there is no life,' she said. 'There's no military infrastructure here, nothing here, nothing. It's horrible when people just die at night.' People were wounded in the city's Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts. Fires broke out in two other city districts as a result of falling debris from drones shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the mayor said. Moscow escalated attacks after Ukraine's Security Service agency staged an audacious operation targeting warplanes in air bases deep inside Russian territory on June 1.
BreakingNews.ie
6 days ago
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Russian missile and drone attack kills 15 and injures dozens in Ukraine
A night-time Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine has killed at least 15 people and injured 156 others while they slept in their homes, local officials said. At least 14 people were killed as explosions echoed across the Ukrainian capital for almost nine hours during the night, Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said. Advertisement The bombardment demolished a nine-storey residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, calling the Kyiv attack 'one of the most terrifying strikes' on the capital. A Russian drone attacks a building during Russia's massive missile and drone air attack in Kyiv (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Ukraine's Interior Ministry said 139 people were injured in Kyiv. Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that Wednesday would be an official day of mourning. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Kyiv in recent months and came after two rounds of direct peace talks failed to make progress on ending the war, now in its fourth year. Advertisement Russia has repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine with missiles and drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. Russia says it strikes only military targets. Russia has in recent months stepped up its aerial attacks. It launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine on June 10 in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the war. Russia also pounded Kyiv on April 24, killing at least 12 people in its deadliest assault on the capital in eight months. The intensified long-range strikes have coincided with a Russian summer offensive on eastern and north-eastern sections of the 620-mile front line, where Ukraine is short-handed and needs more military support from its western partners. Uncertainty about US policy on the war has fuelled doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on. Advertisement Mr Zelensky was set to meet US President Donald Trump at a G7 summit in Canada on Tuesday and press him for more help, but the White House announced Mr Trump would return early to Washington on Monday night because of tensions in the Middle East. Mr Zelensky is trying to prevent Ukraine from being sidelined in international diplomacy as tensions escalate in the Middle East and concerns remain over US trade tariffs. Rescuers run to a shelter to hide from a Russian air raid (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Mr Trump said earlier this month it might be better to let Ukraine and Russia 'fight for a while' before pulling them apart and pursuing peace, even as European leaders have urged him to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into accepting a ceasefire and compromising in peace talks. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia's attacks during the G7 summit showed Mr Putin's 'total disrespect' for the US and other countries. Advertisement 'Russia not only rejects a ceasefire or a leaders' meeting to find solutions and end the war. It cynically strikes Ukraine's capital while pretending to seek diplomatic solutions,' Mr Sybiha wrote on social media. Ukrainian forces have hit back against Russia with their own domestically produced long-range drones. The Russian military said it downed 203 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported briefly halting flights overnight in and out of all four Moscow airports, as well as the airports in the cities of Kaluga, Tambov and Nizhny Novgorod, as a precaution. Advertisement The overnight Russian drone strikes, meanwhile, also struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the regional administration. Mr Putin 'is doing this simply because he can afford to continue the war', Mr Zelensky said. 'He wants the war to go on. It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it.' Interior minister Ihor Klymenko examines the site of a missile strike in Kyiv (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) The Russian attack delivered 'direct hits on residential buildings,' the Kyiv City Military Administration said in a statement. A US citizen died in the attack after suffering shrapnel wounds, interior minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters. Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block after it was struck by a ballistic missile, Mr Klymenko said. 'We have 27 locations that were attacked by the enemy. We currently have over 2,000 people working there, rescuers, police, municipal services and doctors,' he told reporters at the scene of one of the attacks. Olena Lapyshniak, 49, was shaken from the strike that nearly levelled her apartment building. She heard a whistling sound and then two explosions that blew out her windows and doors. 'It's horrible, it's scary, in one moment there is no life,' she said. 'There's no military infrastructure here, nothing here, nothing. It's horrible when people just die at night.'
