At least one person has been killed and several others wounded in Russian air raids on Kyiv as well as the south of Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticised the United States for a “weak” reaction to the attack on his hometown that killed 19 people, including nine children.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the air attacks on the capital early on Sunday caused fires in nonresidential buildings in three districts and left at least one man killed and three other people injured.
Later, it emerged that a ballistic missile had damaged buildings housing “the editorial offices of Ukraine’s State Foreign Broadcasting Enterprise”, according to the Freedom television channel, which reported that its own newsroom had been destroyed.
Separately, Vitaliy Kim, governor of the southern Mykolaiv region, said Russia launched a missile attack at about 10pm (19:00 GMT) on Saturday, damaging several houses and injuring four people.
Zelenskyy said on Telegram on Sunday that the attacks demonstrated to the world that Russia would “continue to fight and kill” despite international diplomatic efforts. “Therefore, there can be no easing of pressure,” he said.
Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said: “Russia is sending a very clear signal. Here is the war at your doorstep. And this is something that is meant to sow fear in the population.”
Standing outside a multi-storey building with a smashed roof and blown out windows in a business park in the capital, Basravi said that Kyiv had not seen an attack on this scale for some time, with much of the damage to “civilian infrastructure” caused by blast waves from powerful munitions.
The entire country was under air alert from 02:00 GMT after the country’s air force warned of an attack, including on regions bordering Poland, forcing the NATO member to scramble aircraft to ensure air safety.
Poland’s military said it and allied forces had taken to the skies “due to the intensive activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation” across the border in western Ukraine, with ground-based air defence systems on high alert.
“The steps taken are aimed at ensuring security in the areas bordering the threatened areas.”
Ukraine’s air defence units shot down 13 of 23 missiles and 40 of 109 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack, the air force said on Sunday. It said 53 drones were lost, in reference to the Ukrainian military using electronic warfare to redirect them.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said 11 Ukrainian drones were intercepted and destroyed overnight over the Kursk, Belgorod and Rostov regions.
Later, it claimed that Ukraine had carried out seven attacks aimed at Russian energy infrastructure over the previous 24 hours despite a US-brokered moratorium on such strikes. The attacks targeted facilities in Crimea, Bryansk, Rostov, and Voronezh regions, it said.
Attack on Kryvyi Rih
On Sunday, Volker Turk, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, denounced Russia’s attack on Zelenskyy’s hometown of of Kryvyi Rih two days previously, which killed at least 19 people, including children as young as three.
Turk said that the attack, which struck a residential area near a playground in the central Ukrainian city, showed “a reckless disregard for civilian life”.
In an emotional statement on social media, Zelenskyy had named each of the nine children killed in the attack on his birthplace, slamming the US embassy for what he called a “weak” statement.
US Ambassador Bridget Brink had posted a message on X on Friday, saying she was “horrified” by the attack, without naming Russia as the aggressor.
“Unfortunately, the reaction of the American embassy is unpleasantly surprising: such a strong country, such a strong people – and such a weak reaction,” Zelenskyy wrote.
Al Jazeera’s Basravi said Zelenskyy was “ratcheting up the rhetoric”, criticising Russia for “continuing to violate ceasefire agreements, continuing to not want want to negotiate”.
“He says that they want the war to carry on,” said Basravi.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rih’s military administration, said three days of mourning had been declared starting April 7.
The attacks came as US President Donald Trump has been pushing for a partial ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, more than three years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Zelenskyy said the assault on Kryvyi Rih showed Russia had no interest in peace.
