By Valentyn , Ogirenko and Jekaterina Golubkova
KYIV, July 2 (Reuters) – Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv overnight killing at least two people and injuring more than a dozen, as drones and missiles struck residential buildings and started a fire in a hotel on a central boulevard.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had earlier warned of a possible overnight attack and said he was cutting short his visit to Dublin for the start of Ireland’s six-month term in the rotating presidency of the EU.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, said two people had been killed and 16 injured. He did not elaborate.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, writing on Telegram, said the first to sixth floors of an apartment building collapsed after a direct hit.
In an earlier post, he said the injured included paramedics and drivers at an ambulance station, and that some people were still trapped inside damaged residential buildings.
Pictures posted online showed a fire burning out of control at the top of a building on the central Shevchenko Boulevard. Multiple explosions were heard in Kyiv, a Reuters witness said.
Carrying children, belongings, tents and pets, people crowded into underground stations, as air raid alerts were issued for most of Ukraine’s territory on Thursday in Russia’s worst attack on the country since mid-June.
Neighbouring Poland, a NATO and European Union member, scrambled fighter jets on Thursday as a preventive measure.
EXCHANGING ATTACKS
Zelenskiy has proposed talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the more than four-year-old war that the Kremlin leader has rejected.
Ukraine has recently intensified strikes deeper into the Russian territory, triggering a widespread fuel crisis in the world’s third-biggest oil producer and forcing it to import gasoline from as far away as India.
Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region, Putin’s home and where large export and oil refining facilities are located, brought down six drones on Thursday, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said on Telegram.
In the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, a man was killed and his wife injured after a drone hit their home, local authorities said separately on Telegram.
Reuters could not independently verify details of the casualties. Russia and Ukraine say they do not deliberately target civilians.
(Reporting by Valentyn Ogirenko, Ron Popeski and Jekaterīna Golubkova; Editing by Franklin Paul, Bill Berkrot and Kate Mayberry)
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