source: reuters
Russia pounded Kyiv and surrounding areas with hundreds of drones and missiles on Sunday in one of the heaviest bombardments of the city since the start of the four-year war, firing an Oreshnik hypersonic missile near the capital.
Russia’s hours-long overnight barrage killed two people in Kyiv and two more in the surrounding area, and it wounded nearly 100, according to Ukrainian officials. Authorities said dozens of residential buildings and several schools had been damaged, many in the centre of Kyiv.
“It’s important that this does not remain without consequences for Russia,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app, urging Ukraine’s allies to act. “Decisions are needed – from the United States, from Europe and others.”
Officials also reported strikes in other parts of Ukraine and two deaths in the southern region of Kherson.
The attack caused minor damage to Ukraine’s cabinet building and to the Foreign Ministry.
Kyiv’s national art museum and philharmonic hall, both in the heart of the city, were badly damaged, officials said, with many other historic buildings in the city centre also affected.
“This is a war against our culture, memory, and identity,” Zelenskiy’s top aide Kyrylo Budanov said. “For centuries, Moscow has tried to destroy everything that makes us Ukrainian.”
One of the strikes destroyed a newly opened museum commemorating the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, eliciting angry words from Zelenskiy when he visited the scene.
At a city centre cafe which had celebrated its opening on Saturday, staff were sweeping up glass and rubble on Sunday. Despite the damage, they continued to serve customers, some of whom said they had come to show their support
