Ukraine-Russia war latest: Seven killed after Putin’s forces launch hundreds of missiles and drones at Kyiv

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is due to visit the United Kingdom today, he has announced.

He said he will discuss with officials Ukraine’s defence as well as “powerful steps to increase pressure on Russia for this war and to put an end to the strikes”.

Zelensky last visited the UK in March, where he met with Sir Keir Starmer and King Charles.

Below, we have a write-up of Russia’s latest strikes across Ukraine.

Russia is playing “bloody roulette” with the lives of Ukrainian civilians, the wife of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said in the wake of a massive missile and drone strike against Kyiv.

Russia launched more than 350 drones and 16 missiles overnight, the main target of which was the Ukrainian capital.

“It is unbearable to see the destroyed houses, but the worst thing is that people have died. Russia plays its bloody roulette daily, shelling our cities, and human lives are always at stake,” she wrote on X.

“My sincere condolences to all those who have lost their loved ones. Ukraine will never get used to terror. What is happening to the world?”

Footage posted by Ukraine’s state emergency services has shown the aftermath of another overnight Russian drone attack on the capital, Kyiv.

So far, at least six people have been reported dead as a result of the strikes.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko told reporters from the scene that “we very much hope that the death toll will not increase” as rescue workers continued to search the collapsed building for any trapped people.

Dozens of vehicles, some burned out and others mangled by flying debris from the blast, formed a snarl in the courtyard in front of the building, which had collapsed down to the second floor.

Onlookers, some wrapped in blankets, watched tearfully as the cleanup operation took place.

Dozens of volunteers worked to remove broken glass, downed tree branches and other debris.

Russia launched 352 drones and 16 missiles overnight targeting the Ukrainian territory, Ukraine’s air force said this morning.

“The main direction of the attack was the city of Kyiv,” the air force said on the Telegram messaging app.

The death toll from the Russian attack on Ukraine’s capital has climbed to six.

Five people were confirmed dead in the attack on a residential building while 10 others, including a pregnant woman, were rescued from a nearby high-rise that also sustained heavy damage in the blast.

Another person was killed and eight people were injured in the city of Bila Tserkva, around 85km southwest of the capital.

A Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine’s capital overnight killed at least four people and injured others, according to Ukraine’s emergency services, as rescue workers and firefighters sought to remove people they believed trapped under debris in a partially collapsed apartment building.

Another person was killed and eight injured in the city of Bila Tserkva in the Kyiv region, around 85km southwest of the capital.

The strikes came nearly a week after a combined Russian attack on Ukraine last Tuesday killed 28 people in Kyiv, 23 of them in a residential building that collapsed after sustaining a direct hit by a missile. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called that attack one of the biggest bombardments of the war, now in its fourth year.

In the early hours of Monday, drones and missiles hit residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure in numerous districts across Kyiv, emergency services said, with the most severe damage occurring in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where one section of a five-story apartment building collapsed.

Four people were confirmed dead in the attack on the building while 10 others had been rescued, emergency services said, adding they believed others were still trapped beneath the debris.

Russia’s air defence units destroyed 16 Ukrainian drones between 10pm local time yesterday and 6am this morning, the Russian defence ministry said.

Thirteen of the drones were downed over the Rostov region, while the rest of the weapons were destroyed over the Astrakhan and Volgograd regions, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app today.

Russia’s military casualties have touched a grim milestone of one million, according to Britain’s defence ministry and an American think tank.

According to the defence ministry, more than one million Russian soldiers have been killed since Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, reported the Guardian.

The estimates align with a study by US-based Centre for Strategic and Internation Studies, according to which, more than 250,000 Russian troops have died and over 950,000 have been injured since the war began.

The study says that around 100,000 Ukrainian personnel have been killed so far and the total casualties have reached 400,000.