Nine people killed and dozens injured in ‘massive’ Russian missile attack on Kyiv

At least nine people have been killed and more than 60 wounded in a “massive” missile attack on Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. It is among the deadliest attacks on the capital of the three-year war.

Ukrainian authorities issued an alert for a missile attack, and AFP journalists heard explosions across the capital early on Thursday.

“Russia has launched a massive combined strike on Kyiv,” Ukraine’s state emergency service said on Telegram.

“According to preliminary data, nine people were killed, 63 injured,” it said, adding that among the 42 people hospitalised, six were children.

Five districts across the capital suffered damage, including fires in garages and administrative buildings that have been extinguished. The state emergency service said the attack also damaged residential buildings.

“The search for people under the rubble is under way,” it said.

Rescue teams were operating at 13 sites in the capital with climbing specialists and sniffer dogs, the emergency service said.

“Mobile telephones are heard ringing beneath rubble. The search will continue until it become clear that they have got everyone.”

Rescuers and civilians worked to pull victims from the rubble of a residential building in Kyiv on Thursday. Photograph: Libkos/Getty Images

In a bomb shelter set up in a basement of a residential building, more than a dozen residents gathered after the air alert started, an AFP journalist witnessed.

Kyiv was last hit by missiles in early April when at least three people were wounded.

It has been the target of sporadic attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Rescuers at the site of a building hit by a Russian ballistic missile strike in Kyiv on Thursday. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

In Ukraine’s east, the city of Kharkiv was hit by seven missiles early on Thursday, city mayor Igor Terekhov said, adding later that it was “under attack by cruise missiles for the second time in one night”.

“One of the most recent strikes hit a densely populated residential area … Two people were injured there. The inspection of the sites of enemy strikes is underway,” Terekhov said, urging the city’s residents to “be careful”.

Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russia was attacking Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities “with missiles and drones right now”.

“Putin shows only a desire to kill,” he said. “The attacks on civilians must stop.”