Russian missiles and drones are pounding Ukraine for a second day, as almost continuous heavy attacks hit the country, with Kyiv bearing the brunt of an assault that has killed at least three and injured 40 in the capital.
The overnight attacks followed heavy daylight raids with missiles and drones across the country on Wednesday.
The assault began at 3am on Thursday with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles fired by Moscow as the sound of explosions echoed through Kyiv. Water supplies were disrupted in the east of the city.
The scale of the Russian attacks and their intensity appeared to put paid to claims by the US president, Donald Trump, that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was close, following recent remarks by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that the war might be approaching an end.
Ukraine’s air force said the latest attack involved 56 missiles of various types and almost 700 drones.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said a large apartment block had collapsed in the Darnytskyi district, where rescue work was ongoing and with 11 people so far rescued.
“Eighteen apartments have been destroyed. A rescue and search operation is ongoing. According to preliminary information, 11 people have been rescued from the building,” he told local media.
“Forty people have been injured in the capital as a result of the enemy large-scale attack. Among them are two children. Thirty-one of the injured have been taken to hospital, including one child,” the mayor added.
Wednesday’s daytime raids killed at least 14 people and injured more than 80 others. They appear to have included “double-tap” strikes aimed at first responders sent to the sites of attacks, and also struck two-dozen sites associated with Ukraine’s railway system and other critical infrastructure.
The scale of the recent raids led to warnings that Russia was attempting to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defence systems by swarming them with drones and missiles.
In a late afternoon post on Wednesday the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had described Wednesday’s attack as “one of the longest [and most] massive Russian attacks against Ukraine”, suggesting Moscow’s aim was to spoil the “political atmosphere” during Trump’s visit to China.
Zelenskyy added that Ukraine’s intelligence had assessed Moscow was attempting to overwhelm Kyiv’s air defences through the scale and intensity of the attacks to cause “as much grief and pain as possible”.
The attacks followed Trump’s latest claims of progress in negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which were offered on Wednesday with scant detail and followed similar unfounded claims.
“The end of the war in Ukraine I really think is getting very close,” the US president told reporters as he left the White House for a summit in Beijing. “Believe it or not, it’s getting closer.”
His comments follow remarks by Putin in a speech last weekend that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was possibly coming to an end.
The attacks came as Ukraine’s military situation on the battlefield appeared to have been improving in recent months. Ukraine has gone from pleading for international help with its defence to offering other countries expertise on how to counter attacks thanks to its domestically developed drone technology.