Ukraine vows more strikes on Russia after attack on Kyiv kills 24

Thursday’s devastating attack on Kyiv – the deadliest on the Ukrainian capital for months – further hit already slim prospects for a breakthrough on ending the war.

Kyiv’s allies accused Russia of mocking diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. 

Moscow has shown no sign of backing down from its aims in Ukraine, demanding that Kyiv give up four eastern and southern regions that Russia claimed in 2022 to have annexed.

Fresh Russian attacks on Friday killed one person in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

In Russia, Ukrainian overnight drone strikes on an apartment block in the city of Ryazan – south-west of Moscow — killed four people including a child, officials said.

Unverified social media videos showed plumes of smoke rising over Ryazan – a city of around 500,000 – and a high-rise apartment block with several blackened floors.

The Ukrainian army, which has launched retaliatory drone strikes throughout Moscow’s offensive, said it had targeted an oil refinery.

Since Russia’s invasion began in 2022, hundreds of thousands of people have died, millions have been forced to flee their homes and parts of eastern and southern Ukraine have been decimated by fighting.

Russia currently occupies around a fifth of Ukraine: the entirety of the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, most of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk – collectively referred to as the Donbas – and large parts of the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.