Sawt Falasteen - Zelensky cuts short South Africa trip after deadly attack on Kyiv

Ukraine has been battered with aerial attacks throughout Russia's three-year invasion, but deadly strikes on Kyiv, which is better protected by air defences than other cities, are less common.

The attacks threw 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 Zelensky for refusing to accept Moscow's occupation of Crimea as a condition for peace.

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

"It has been 44 days since Ukraine agreed to a full ceasefire and a halt to strikes... And it has been 44 days of Russia continuing to kill our people," Zelensky said in a post on X.

The Ukrainian leader, who was on a trip to South Africa, announced he would return to Ukraine immediately after meeting the country's president Cyril Ramaphosa.

"The strikes must be stopped immediately and unconditionally," he added.

Rescuers initially said nine people were killed, but interior minister Igor Klymenko later told reporters eight were dead, while more than 70 were injured.

Rescuers were working to recover people from the rubble of buildings, he added.

Olena Davydiuk, a 33-year-old lawyer in Kyiv, told AFP she saw windows breaking and doors "falling out of their hinges" during the barrage.

"People were being pulled out of the rubble. They said that there were dead people there too," she added.

- 'Phone calls under rubble' -

Russia fired at least 70 missiles and 145 drones at Ukraine between late Wednesday and early Thursday, the main target being Kyiv, the Ukrainian air force said.

Of the 215 projectiles, 112 were "confirmed to have been shot down", it wrote on Telegram.

Loud blasts sounded over the Ukrainian capital at around 1:00 am (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.

"Phone calls can be heard from under the rubble -- the search will continue until we are confident that we have found everyone," 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.

- 'Killing field' -

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.

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.

H.Nasr--SF-PST