Russia batters Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, killing at least 9

Zelenskyy warns that country has run out of interceptor missiles for its U.S. Patriot air defence systems

Russia launched an intense barrage of ballistic missiles and drones overnight into Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding 30 civilians in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, authorities said.

The strikes follow a major Russian attack two days earlier that killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 50 others across Ukraine, as Moscow apparently looks to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defences.

The relentless cycle of attacks dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than four-year-old invasion of its neighbour.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said Saturday it had launched a “massive strike” against “Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities and logistics centres in Kyiv.”

WATCH | Russia continues to launch deadly attacks:A five-storey residential building in the city’s Solomianskyi District was damaged by falling debris and a fire broke out. Rescue workers evacuated 35 people from the upper floors of the building and two people died, with eight reported injured, including two children, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

In the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, seven people were killed and another 14 injured after the attack caused fires and damage to houses, vehicles, an administrative and non-residential building, the emergency services said.

Elsewhere, emergency workers extinguished a fire in a non-residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district. There was no additional information about earlier reports by the district mayor that people were trapped in another residential building.

Damage to commercial and residential buildings was reported in two other city districts.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the United States and other Western partners over Ukraine’s need for more Patriot anti-ballistic missile defence systems to counter missile attacks from Russia.

“Every package of ballistic missile interceptors saves the lives of our people. And every night without them results in more casualties,” he wrote on X after the latest attacks.

The Ukrainian leader late Friday said he spoke to U.S. Vice-President JD Vance and discussed a meeting with President Donald Trump earlier this week in Washington, which Zelenskyy described as “positive and productive.”

“The Russian air strikes on our country continue and air defence, specifically interceptors for Patriot systems against ballistic missiles, remains a top priority,” Zelenskyy said Friday in a post on Telegram.

At a NATO summit in Ankara in July, Trump said the U.S. would give Ukraine a licence to make Patriot systems, but he appeared to move away from that commitment on Friday during a cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, saying he had not yet made a final decision on the matter.

'I heard the sound of shattering glass'

From a basement shelter where she was taking cover as a second air alarm sounded for another wave, Liudmyla Nakonechna, 64, described how she was woken by loud explosions at 1:30 a.m.

“I ran into the corridor and was standing there when the bathroom door was blown off its hinges and struck me in the leg,” said Nakonechna, whose health is poor after undergoing cancer treatment. “I heard the sound of shattering glass. My balcony was covered in glass and it was completely blown apart, while the windows in my bedroom were also blown out.”

WATCH | Ukraine has been striking back, hitting 'Russia's Amazon':Nakonechna had not taken cover in a shelter since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, but the stress became too much, she said.

“It’s getting worse by the day,” Nakonechna said. “Whereas before there was an attack once every two weeks, or maybe once a week, now it happens practically every day. It is incredibly hard to bear this psychologically.”

Lithuania’s foreign minister said the country’s embassy in Kyiv was damaged when missiles struck nearby overnight.

Meanwhile, in Russian-occupied Crimea, the Moscow-appointed head of the city of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said Saturday that a 60-year-old woman was killed and two other people wounded in a drone attack on the city.

Ukraine attack sinks Russian vessel

Two Ukrainian drones hit and sank a civilian vessel owned by Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom sailing in the Black Sea overnight, the company's head, Alexei Likhachev, said in a statement on Saturday.

WATCH | Ukraine's running low on interceptors:All 17 crew members survived the attack on the ship, which was transporting goods such as frozen food and construction materials, Likhachev added.

"Such an attack can only be described as piracy and maritime robbery," he said.

Both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks in recent weeks on ships that they say are aiding the other side's war effort.

With files from Reuters