President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the wreckage of a Kyiv apartment building struck this week, placing red roses at the site and speaking with rescue personnel after a Russian missile strike killed 24 people, among them three children.
Zelenskiy said on the Telegram app that "Our first responders ... worked non-stop for more than a day," after attending the scene in the Darnytskyi district, on the left bank of the Dnipro river. He added: "The Russians practically levelled an entire section of the building with their missile."
Search and rescue teams concluded operations at the devastated multi-storey block following Russia’s heaviest air assault on Kyiv so far this year. The Interior Ministry said the search lasted more than 28 hours, with hundreds of rescuers sifting through roughly 3,000 cubic meters of rubble.
City officials reported that 24 bodies were recovered from the debris and about 30 people were pulled out alive. Nearly 50 people were wounded by the blast, and approximately 400 residents required psychological support, the Interior Ministry added.
The strike on the apartment building came amid a broad barrage of attacks across Ukraine over two consecutive days, which Ukrainian officials said included more than 1,500 drones and dozens of missiles. Officials also said six people were killed in Wednesday’s attacks in western Ukraine, an area far from the front line.
Following the strike, Kyiv municipal authorities declared a day of mourning. National flags across the city of three million were flown at half-mast and all entertainment events were cancelled or postponed to honour the victims.
Zelenskiy stated that an initial analysis indicated the building was hit by a recently manufactured Russian Kh-101 missile. Russia did not immediately comment on the strike on the apartment building.
While Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, the statement noted that during more than four years of war it has frequently hit residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in airstrikes across Ukraine.
In Kyiv, Zelenskiy reiterated appeals to international partners to help strengthen Ukraine’s air defences. He said: "A Russia like this can never be normalized – a Russia that deliberately destroys lives and hopes to remain unpunished. Pressure is needed."
Background reporting details the human and operational toll from the attack: the scale of the rescue effort, the number of casualties and survivors recovered, and the wider pattern of missile and drone strikes reported by Ukrainian authorities over the same period. Local officials and the Interior Ministry provided the casualty, search and support figures.