in brief
- Ukraine's capitl Kyiv has been hit by a second major Russian strike in a week.
- Russia has intensified its use of ballistic missiles to strike deep within Ukrainian territory.
Russia pounded Kyiv in a heavy ballistic missile attack on Saturday, killing nine people, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine had run out of interceptor missiles for its US Patriot air defence systems.
Zelenskyy said Russia launched 35 missiles at Ukraine, including 27 ballistic missiles, and 185 drones. Only one ballistic missile was intercepted, "simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot system", he said.
More than a dozen explosions reverberated through the city during several waves of attacks, according to Reuters news agency witnesses.
"Every package of ballistic missile interceptors saves the lives of our people. And every night without them results in more casualties," Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.
With the war in its fifth year, fighting is raging along roughly 1,200 kilometres of front line. But Russian advances have slowed by more than half this year, and Ukraine has been launching strikes inside Russia, hitting its oil facilities, logistics sites, and weapons production.
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At the same time, Russia intensified its attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, while Ukraine is chronically short of air defences capable of downing ballistic missiles, which travel at several times the speed of sound.
Moscow and Kyiv both deny targeting civilians in the war launched by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Second major attack on Kyiv this week
Saturday's is the second major attack on Kyiv this week after strikes on Thursday killed nine people, including six members of one family in a village near Kryvyi Rih, and a suspected Russian cruise missile landed in Poland.
Damage was recorded in seven districts across Kyiv, a city of about 3 million people, the Prosecutor's General Office said after Saturday's attacks.
Zelenskyy said that fires broke out across Kyiv and 18 residential buildings, a school, the Lithuanian Embassy, and infrastructure facilities were damaged.
The Lithuanian foreign ministry said windows at its embassy had broken, solar collectors were damaged, and the yard was scattered with debris.
Ukrainian prosecutors said seven people were killed in the Darnytskyi district on the left bank of the Dnipro river and two more people died in the Solomyanskyi district on the right bank of the city.
Dozens of people were injured, including four children who suffered multiple shrapnel wounds and lacerations.
Trump walks back Patriot offer
The attack comes as Ukraine presses its allies for Patriot air defences.
Zelenskyy had met with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday for talks, partly to lobby Washington for licenses to produce Patriots domestically.
The Ukrainian leader said following the meeting that Trump had agreed to license the production of the missiles to Kyiv.
But the US president appeared to express reservations on Friday, saying that Washington would have to be "very careful" about the decision.
On Saturday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said Russia's attacks showed Ukraine needed the weapon urgently.
"It is the battle for the skies that will define the trajectory of this war. The stronger the air shield over Ukraine, the closer peace becomes," he said.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.
Tens of thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes due to the fighting, while Moscow now occupies around a fifth of its neighbour — including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
— with additional reporting from the Agence France-Presse news agency.
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