Russian Missiles, Drones Kill at Least 10 in Kyiv
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- Russian forces struck Kyiv with ballistic missiles and drones on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 56 — including two children — across roughly three dozen locations.
- A Russian projectile directly hit an apartment building, partially collapsing six floors; a nine-storey residential building also had people trapped inside.
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking at a joint press conference in Dublin with Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin, warned of an imminent "massive Russian strike" based on intelligence data, cut his Ireland visit short, and accused Putin of "completely refusing to end the war."
- Russia's Defence Ministry confirmed it carried out a "massive attack" using long-range, high-precision air-, land- and sea-launched weapons, claiming it hit military and energy facilities around Kyiv and military airports in Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
- Moscow framed the strikes as retaliation for Ukraine's attack on civilian infrastructure — a justification Zelenskyy dismissed as Putin "see[ing] only further aggression against Ukraine and against other neighbours and Europe as a whole."
- Poland, a NATO and EU member, briefly scrambled fighter jets on Thursday as a preventive measure before recalling them, recording no airspace violation.
Why it matters: The strikes killed at least 10 civilians and injured 56, including children, with a residential building partially collapsing in Kyiv. Russia's simultaneous claim of 'retaliation' for Ukrainian strikes on civilian infrastructure underscores the tit-for-tat escalation Zelenskyy flagged from Dublin while cutting his Ireland visit short to return and warn his people.
