Russian strikes slammed into central Kyiv Thursday as Antonio Guterres was visiting, shocking the UN chief and wounding 10, in the first such rocket attack on the capital since mid-April.
A loud blast rocked the Ukrainian capital at around 1715 GMT, sending emergency vehicles scrambling towards a residential area in the western part of the centre in an attack that shook the UN chief and his team.
The emergency services said one strike hit a 25-storey residential block, partially destroying two floors, while AFP correspondents also saw a low-rise building in flames, with black smoke pouring into the air and rescuers at the scene.
The blasts came soon after Guterres wrapped up talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A spokesperson said Guterres and his team were safe. Meanwhile, explosions were reported across the country, in Polonne in the west, Chernihiv near the border with Belarus, and Fastiv, a large railway hub southwest of the capital.
The mayor of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said rockets were intercepted by air defenses. In the ruined southern port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters holed up in the steel plant that represents the last pocket of resistance said concentrated bombing overnight killed and wounded more people.
‘My only objective is to rescue people’
Earlier in the day, Guterres had called war “an absurdity in the 21st century” during a tour of several towns on the outskirts of Kyiv where Russian forces are alleged to have committed war crimes before retreating to refocus their offensive on the eastern Donbas region. Russia denies the allegations.
“When I see those destroyed buildings, I imagine my family in one of those houses now destroyed and black. I see my granddaughters running in panic,” he told reporters in Borodyanka, northwest of the Ukrainian capital, from beside the wreckage of apartment blocks.
Ukraine said five Russian missiles hit the capital as U.N. Secretary General António Guterres ended his Thursday visit, in which he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and called the war “an absurdity in the 21st century.” Russia confirmed Friday that it had conducted operations targeting Kyiv, saying its long-range weapons destroyed an arms factory there.
However, Ukraine said a residential building had been hit, and U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said one of its journalists had been killed in the strike.
As NATO warns the war could drag on for years, senior U.S. officials are laying the groundwork for a different global security order.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told U.S. lawmakers the world had changed dramatically and declared support for Finland and Sweden joining NATO, while President Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion in aid for Ukraine.
We have always emphasized the importance of having a good website for your company because it can act as your best tool for marketing and sales. A poorly designed website can repulse people from your business and can cause you to lose customers before you even have them. Get in touch with HyperEffects to work on creating, enhancing, and making the website of your company more user-friendly.