Kyiv mourns as death toll from Russian attack in Ukrainian capital rises to 24

The death toll from a Russian missile attack that flattened a Kyiv apartment building had risen to 24, including three teenagers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Mr Zelensky made his comments as he led the mourning for one of the deadliest attacks on the capital in the four-year-old war.

The cruise missile hit the nine-storey corner apartment block on Thursday during what the Ukrainian air force said was Russia’s biggest barrage on the country of the full-scale invasion.

Emergency workers finished digging through the rubble searching for victims after more than a day, Mr Zelensky said on X.

Crowds of grieving people — many of them children — streamed towards a makeshift memorial beneath a tree near the destroyed building.

Teenagers clutching bouquets arrived in groups and broke into tears as they approached the growing mound of flowers and stuffed toys beside photographs of the dead.

A portrait of a girl in a school uniform, posed against a bright-yellow backdrop, was among the photos.

Mr Zelensky and other top government officials visited the site to pay tribute to the dead, as did Kyiv-based foreign diplomats.

Russia has hammered Ukraine with large-scale aerial attacks in the days since a May 9-11 ceasefire that US President Donald Trump said he asked Mr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to observe. Fighting continued over those 72 hours, although reportedly on a lesser scale.

This week’s attacks run counter to recent suggestions from Mr Trump and Mr Putin that the war is close to ending.

The assault mostly targeted the Ukrainian capital, where 48 people were wounded, including two children, Mr Zelensky said.

He said Moscow had launched more than 1,560 drones against Ukrainian population centres since Wednesday, adding that about 180 sites across the country were damaged, including more than 50 residential buildings.

Previously, the biggest Russian drone attack was on March 23-24 when Moscow’s forces fired nearly 1,000 drones and missiles at Ukraine.

Thursday’s death toll in Kyiv approached one from July 2024, when 32 civilians were killed and another 85 injured.

Ukraine has also built up significant long-range capabilities, and Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that its air defences downed 355 Ukrainian drones overnight in one of the largest barrages of the war. Several airports suspended flights overnight because of the attacks.

A Ukrainian drone struck Ryazan, a city about 60 miles (100km) south-east of Moscow, and killed four people, including a child, regional governor Pavel Malkov said.

Massive plumes of black smoke rose from a fire at an oil refinery.

Ukraine has targeted Russian oil facilities to try to deny vital revenue for Moscow and rattle the Kremlin.

Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment on the Ryazan strike.

The cruise missile that hit the Kyiv apartment building was built in the second quarter of this year, Mr Zelensky said, apparently after Ukrainian experts analysed the wreckage.

“This means Russia is still importing the components, resources and equipment necessary for missile production in circumvention of global sanctions,” he said in another post on X late on Thursday.

“Stopping Russia’s sanctions evasion schemes must be a genuine priority for all our partners.”