Ukraine’s main government building in Kyiv hit for first time, PM says

Ukraine’s main government building in Kyiv has been hit for the first time in the war during Russian attacks, the Ukrainian prime minister says.

Yulia Svyrydenko said the building’s roof and upper floors were damaged “due to an enemy attack” and firefighters were extinguishing the blaze.

Also in Kyiv, a baby and a young woman were killed after a nine-storey residential building was hit in the Svyatoshynsky district, with rescuers looking for a third body, officials said.

Ukraine’s air force reported a record number of drones and missiles were launched by Russia in the latest nightly attack – more than 800 in total.

According to the air force, nine missiles and 56 drones hit 37 locations, and the downed wreckage fell at eight locations.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky urged political will from the world to stop the attacks.

“Such killings now, at a time when real diplomacy could have started a long time ago, are a deliberate crime and an attempt to prolong the war,” he said on social media.

The Kyiv government building that was hit, also known as the cabinet of ministers building, houses the offices of Ukraine’s main ministers.

This is a new twist in Russia’s attacks on Ukraine. Until now, no government building has been hit – the centre of Kyiv is very heavily defended, it has been since the start of the full-scale invasion. So this will shake people.

It is a symbolic strike. It also shows clearly that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s talk about being ready for peace is all posturing. He is not stopping. Instead, Russia is intensifying its attacks.

The BBC’s team is not being allowed close to the cabinet building. This whole area is behind a checkpoint, because all the main official buildings are there – government, parliament and the presidential palace.

But earlier, the team saw helicopters overhead dropping water onto the flames. The cloud of smoke rising over the city from the fire was huge.

Early on Sunday morning, the team saw a large column of smoke rising into the sky from just behind the Maidan, Independence Square.

Then they heard and saw two Russian cruise missiles moving at very high speed, before another explosion.

Kyiv’s military administration head Tymur Tkachenko had said: “They are deliberately hitting civilian facilities.” He urged residents to remain in shelters.

Shortly afterwards, Kyiv’s mayor Vitaly Klitschko said a government building was on fire in the central Pecherskyi district. He said a downed Russian drone may have caused the blaze.

“Firefighters are working on the scene,” the mayor added.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, 17 people were injured in a strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia, when multiple buildings including a nursery and people’s homes were hit, regional administration head Ivan Fedorov said.

Outside the city, a woman was killed and a man is still missing after a Russian glide bomb hit the Novopavlivka village, Fedorov said.

Another person was killed in Safonivka, in the Sumy region, and another in the Chernihiv region, Zelensky said.

Russia also attacked Kryvyi Rih, Zelensky’s hometown in central Ukraine, where three infrastructure facilities were hit. Air raid warnings were activated overnight for all of the country’s regions.

Kyiv officials said several multi-storey residential buildings in the western Svyatoshynkyi and south-eastern Darnytskyi districts were partially destroyed and continued to be ablaze after direct hits.

Russia has not commented on the reported drone strikes across Ukraine.

In a statement, the Russian defence ministry said its air defence forces shot down or intercepted 69 Ukrainian drones in a number of Russian regions.

Ukrainian drones carried out another strike against the key Russian oil pipeline Druzhba, the Ukrainian unmanned aerial forces commander Robert Brovdi said. Writing on social media, he said that a pumping station in Russia’s Bryansk region was hit.

Earlier this week, Putin rejected Western proposals for a “reassurance force” in Ukraine the day after any ceasefire comes into place, following a Paris summit aimed at finalising plans for security guarantees.

French President Emmanuel Macron said 26 of Ukraine’s allies had formally committed to deploying troops “by land, sea or air” to help provide security the moment fighting was brought to a halt. He gave no further details.

Putin sought to quash the allies’ initiative, warning that any troops deployed to Ukraine would be “legitimate targets”.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory – including the southern Crimea peninsula illegally annexed in 2014.

Additional reporting by Vitaliy Shevchenko