Sawt Falasteen - 'Massive' Russian missile attack kills nine in Kyiv

Ukraine has been battered by Russian aerial attacks through the war, but deadly strikes on Kyiv, which is better protected by air defences that other cities, are less common.

The attacks throw yet more doubt on already fraught US efforts to push Russia and Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire, hours after US President Donald Trump lashed out at Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky for refusing to accept Moscow's occupation of the Crimean peninsula as a condition for peace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is yet to respond to Zelensky's offer to completely halt air attacks on civilian targets, and last month rejected a US-Ukrainian call for a full and unconditional ceasefire.

"Putin demonstrates through his actions, not words, that he does not respect any peace efforts and only wants to continue the war," Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said on social media, also slamming Moscow's "maximalist demands for Ukraine to withdraw" from more of its territory as a condition of peace.

"Putin shows only a desire to kill," Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, added.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said Russia had "terrorised Ukrainian cities throughout the night."

"Cruise and ballistic missiles, drones, air bombs. Russia is cruelly and cynically firing missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing people while the world is making efforts to establish peace," he said in a post on social media.

- 'Phone calls under rubble' -

Loud blasts had sounded over the Ukrainian capital at around 1:00 a.m. (2200 GMT) after air raid sirens rang out across Kyiv warning residents to head to shelters, AFP journalists on the ground said.

Through the night, rescue workers were scouring through the rubble of destroyed buildings and tackling blazes in apartment blocks. The interior ministry said damage was recorded at 13 separate locations across the capital.

At least nine people were killed and more than 60 wounded, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said.

Six children were among 42 people hospitalised, it added.

"Phone calls can be heard from under the rubble -- the search will continue until we are confident that we have found everyone," Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said, adding that two children were unaccounted for.

In the Sviatoshinsky district in the west of Kyiv, an AFP journalist saw a body bag with one of the victims lain out on a strip of grass.

Construction equipment was being used nearby to clear piles of debris from a destroyed building, and roofs and windows had been blown off an apartment block.

A woman sat on a small folded-out chair stroking the arm of another person killed in the attack, the body covered in a striped blue sheet.

Nearby an AFP journalist saw a first responder talking to a woman wounded in the attack, her face bloodied and bruised as she clutched a dog in her arms.

Kyiv was last hit by missiles in early April when at least three people were wounded, and the capital has been targeted in sporadic attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Moscow's army has launched some of its most deadly and brazen aerial strikes at Ukraine over the last month -- defying Trump's push to bring about a rapid end to the bloodshed.

A ballistic missile strike on the centre of northeastern city of Sumy killed at least 35 on April 13.

And an attack on Zelensky's home town of Kryvyi Rig in early April killed at least 19 -- including nine children after a missile slammed into a residential area near a children's playground.

- 'Killing field' -

The Ukrainian leader had on Wednesday called for an "immediate, full and unconditional ceasefire."

"Stopping the killings is the number one task," Zelensky said on social media, as his top aides met European and US officials in London.

Hours before the attack, Trump had said a peace deal was "very close" -- and effectively closed with Moscow -- but accused Zelensky of being "harder" to negotiate with.

The Ukrainian president's refusal to accept US terms for ending the conflict -- which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 -- "will do nothing but prolong the 'killing field'," he said.

Russia also launched a large-scale attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv overnight, firing at least seven missiles and hitting a "densely populated residential area," city mayor Igor Terekhov said.

Separately, Russia's defence ministry reported downing 87 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 45 over Crimea.

Y.Zaher--SF-PST