Sept 8 (Reuters) – Russia pummelled Kyiv with drones and missiles early on Tuesday, resuming its air attacks after a brief halt for the visit of U.S. peace negotiators, killing two people and triggering fires across the Ukrainian capital.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 10 more had been injured in the city, while falling debris in one district caused fires at a five-storey apartment building and a three-storey residential block.
The attack damaged at least 14 high-rise buildings, a dorm, a school, a clinic, warehouses and other sites, officials said.
BRIEF RESPITE IN ATTACKS
Russia resumed its attacks after U.S. peace envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff left Kyiv following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday, as the Trump administration renewed its push to end Russia’s 4-1/2-year war in Ukraine.
They arrived from talks in Moscow, after which the Kremlin said it did not rule out the resumption of the three-way negotiations.
“The moment the U.S. president’s peace envoys left, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin launched another massive, horrific attack against Kyiv,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.
“His ballistic missiles speak louder than his words on diplomacy,” Sybiha said, urging allies to ramp up pressure on Moscow, as well as to provide interceptors to down ballistic missiles, since Kyiv’s stocks of these run critically low.
Prior to the talks, Russia stepped up air attacks on Kyiv and nearby areas to nearly round-the-clock for several days, rather than mainly at night, using faster jet-propelled drones that killed residents and disrupted activities.
The Russian defence ministry said Moscow hit military and logistic targets in Kyiv and the surrounding region, as well as in the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk, Russian newswires said.
POLAND ACTIVATES AIRCRAFT
Amid explosions heard in Kyiv, neighbouring Poland, a NATO and European Union member, launched preventive operations against Russian missile attacks on Ukraine, the Polish army said.
Poland’s Lublin airport has temporarily suspended flights because of the military operations.
In Russia, Ukrainian drones damaged civilian infrastructure and injured people in the Volga river city of Saratov, some 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, the regional governor said.
The area is home to a large oil refinery run by state oil company Rosneft, as well as other industrial and military facilities.
(Reporting by Valentyn Ogirenko in Kyiv, Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk and Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Kate Mayberry and Clarence Fernandez)
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