“Russia has launched a massive combined strike on Kyiv,” Ukraine’s state emergency service said on Telegram, updating the toll.
“According to preliminary data, nine people were killed, 63 injured,” it said, adding that among the 42 people hospitalised, six were children.
Five districts across the capital suffered damage, including fires in garages and administrative buildings that have been extinguished.
The state emergency service said the attack also damaged residential buildings.
In Ukraine’s east, the city of Kharkiv was hit by seven missiles, said city mayor Igor Terekhov, who later warned that “a massive drone attack on the city continues”.
“Stay safe!” Terekhov said on Telegram.
Hours earlier, 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 in 2022 – “will do nothing but prolong the ‘killing field’,” he said.
“I think we have a deal with Russia. We have to get a deal with Zelensky,” Trump said. “I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelensky. So far it’s been harder.”
Ahead of Trump’s broadside, Vice President JD Vance laid out the US vision for a peace deal where Russia would get to keep already occupied swaths of Ukraine, which include Crimea.
Zelensky has rejected this as a violation of Ukraine’s constitution.
That in turn prompted an outburst from Trump, in which he accused Zelensky of being “inflammatory” and taking a position “very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia.”
Zelensky “can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country,” Trump wrote.
Trump said Crimea – a lush Black Sea peninsula with longtime major Soviet and Russian naval facilities – “was lost years ago” and “is not even a point of discussion.”
Zelensky responded by posting on social media a 2018 “Crimea declaration” by Trump’s then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo, which said Washington “rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea.” (AFP)
