Russian strikes kill 16 in Ukraine, Zelensky says lack of Patriot missiles costs lives

Russian strikes killed 16 people and injured more than 40 in Kyiv and the surrounding region on Thursday as President Volodymyr Zelensky said a failure by Ukraine’s allies to replenish its stock of air defence missiles was costing lives.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched dozens of cruise missiles, as well as ballistic and hypersonic ones, and 168 drones, in the massive overnight attack.

The air force said nearly 90% of the drones and most of the cruise missiles were downed. It did not specify how many ballistic missiles were launched and whether any were intercepted.

The upper floors of a nine-storey residential block were destroyed in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, where the majority of the 15 deaths in the capital occurred, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He called for Friday to be observed as a day of mourning.

Two other districts suffered damage, Klitschko said, with a school and a children’s hospital hit as well as non-residential facilities and warehouses.

The Russian defence ministry said Moscow attacked Kyiv and the surrounding region with airstrikes and drones, hitting facilities producing drone components, a military depot and a logistics hub, as well as other targets.

The Russian strikes also targeted the Black Sea region of Odesa, where repeated attacks on port infrastructure and ships have brought Ukraine’s vital agricultural exports to a virtual halt in recent weeks, pressuring global food prices.

As Russia has escalated its ballistic strikes in recent months, Zelensky has pleaded with allies to replenish Ukraine’s stock of Patriot interceptors, the only weapon in its arsenal capable of downing a ballistic missile.

“The interceptors for Patriot systems have not yet been replaced, and they are needed every day,” Zelensky said on the Telegram app. “Each additional missile saves the lives of our people.”

Moscow, he said, would not seriously negotiate for peace as long as Ukraine had no missile defences to defend its cities. US-mediated talks to end the four-year war stalled this year as Ukraine refused to yield to Russian demands to cede more territory.

“Unfortunately, the world’s response to such attacks is not always adequate,” Zelensky said.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on X, in response to Zelensky’s message, that she was working with member states and partners to provide Ukraine with anti-ballistic capabilities as “the most urgent of priorities”.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said that some food warehouses and the facilities of the Red Cross around Kyiv were damaged in the overnight attack, which lasted nearly nine hours.

In recent weeks, fresh fruit and vegetables have occasionally disappeared from the shelves in some supermarkets in the capital as a result of strikes on logistics depots of food retailers.

At the missile-damaged apartment block in Solomianskyi district, an elderly woman wailed as rescuers carried out the body of her grandson, Reuters TV images showed.

She stood sobbing beside his body after he was placed on the ground, before medics moved in to support her.

While most of the dead were in the Ukrainian capital, one person was also killed in the surrounding region, an official said on Telegram.

Ukraine has also increased its attacks on Russia, targeting oil facilities and logistics infrastructure to try to undermine Moscow’s ability to wage war. Last month registered the most civilian casualties since the opening months of the war, the UN said, with the majority on Ukrainian soil.

Overnight, authorities in Russia’s Tatarstan region, 1,000km east of Moscow, reported a disruption at an industrial complex in the city of Nizhnekamsk after a Ukrainian drone attack, adding that some residential apartments were also damaged. Ukraine’s General Staff said it hit the Taneco oil refinery and an oil terminal in Krasnodar region.

A drone crashed into Nato and EU member Romania during the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Romanian defence ministry said on Thursday. A drone also came down on Moldovan territory, President Maia Sandu said.

Ukraine has handed peace proposals to US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for a plan to end the war, Zelensky said this month.

Russia did not receive specific proposals for possible new meetings with US negotiators, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the Izvestia newspaper, but added that Moscow would be ready to arrange a meeting at short notice.

Witkoff and Kushner were last in Moscow in January and have not yet visited Kyiv. No date has yet been confirmed for a proposed visit to Ukraine, according to one source familiar with the discussions.