Kyiv hit by deadly Russian missile and drone attack - officials
ReutersAt least eight people have been killed and more than 80 others injured, including children, in an overnight Russian missile and drone attack on four districts of Ukraine's capital Kyiv, local officials say.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said falling drone wreckage triggered a number of fires, and there are fears that a number of people may be trapped under the rubble of a destroyed residential building.
Blasts were also reported in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, which also came under attack. At least two people were injured, the mayor said.
After the attacks, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky announced he would cut short a diplomatic visit to South Africa.
The attacks came hours after US President Donald Trump accused Zelensky of harming peace negotiations.
Zelensky has ruled out recognising Russian control of Crimea, a southern Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Russian President Vladimir Putin went on to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.
Trump said on Wednesday that Crimea "was lost years ago", but Zelensky pointed to a 2018 "Crimea declaration" by Trump's then secretary of state Mike Pompeo that said the US "rejects Russia's attempted annexation".
Ukraine's DSNS state emergencies service and the interior ministry had initially said nine people were killed in Kyiv in the overnight Russian attack involving some 70 missiles and up to 150 attack drones.
Ukraine's interior minister later revised the initial death toll down to eight, explaining that the ninth fatality was believed to be body parts from other victims.
In a post on social media, Mayor Klitschko wrote that six children and a pregnant woman were among those injured.
"Fires broke out in six locations," he said, adding that there "people are under the rubble" of a destroyed residential building.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that "phone calls can be heard from the wreckage".
He also said that two children were reported missing.
Emergency services are still searching through the rubble where they think people are possibly buried. Rescuer teams with sniffer dogs were seen combing through the wreckage as they searched for survivors.
On Thursday morning, an apartment block believed to be where the nine people died was completely flattened. All the surrounding buildings had their windows blown out and balconies ripped down.
A woman whose apartment was badly damaged told the BBC she fled twice from her hometown in the east of Ukraine, an area that is now occupied by Russia.
When asked whether Zelensky should give up those territories to get a peace deal done, she said no adamantly, adding it would be "against our constitution".
The worst-hit in the overnight strikes was the western Svyatoshynskyi district of the capital, Klitschko said. Five other districts were hit, Kyiv officials said, including Holosiivskyi in the south, Solomyanskyi district in the south-west and Shevchenkivskyi district in the west.
Footage has emerged on social media purportedly showing missiles hitting the city, triggering huge blazes.
This appears to be the deadliest attack on the Ukrainian capital since 8 July last year, when 34 people were confirmed dead and 121 injured after Russian strikes hit civilian infrastructure including the Okhmatdyt children's hospital.
DSNS UkraineIn Kharkiv, about 40km (25 miles) from the Russian border, two people were injured, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
He said "private houses" were damaged in the overnight Russian missile and drone attack.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the overnight attacks indicated that Russia and not Ukraine was "the obstacle to peace", and that Putin did not respect peace efforts "and only wants to continue the war".
Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit Moscow this week, after the US president said a peace deal was "very close".
US Vice-President JD Vance has said the American plan includes a call for the current front lines in the conflict to be frozen "at some level close to where they are today".
Kyiv has warned it cannot accept a "frozen conflict". Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said a full ceasefire was a "necessary first step".
Ukraine's air force warned that virtually all the country's regions were under the threat of air strikes.
The Russian military has not commented on the reported attacks.
In a post on social media, the Russian defence ministry said that 87 Ukrainian drones had been either destroyed or intercepted overnight over several Russian regions.
Additional reporting by Seher Asaf and Vitaliy Shevchenko