Nine children among the dead in strike on Kryvyi Rih residential area as Kyiv says Moscow’s claim it targeted military gathering is false. What we know on day 1,137
A Russian missile strike killed at least 18 people, including nine children, in a residential area of Ukraine’s central city of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, local officials said – one of Moscow’s deadliest attacks this year in the war. The strike in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home town damaged residential blocks and sparked fires, the regional governor said on Telegram. More than 30 people, including a three-month-old baby, were in hospital, Serhiy Lysak said. At least 50 people were wounded, the emergency services said, adding that the figure was growing. Zelenskyy said rescue efforts were still under way and called on the west to exert greater pressure on Moscow. “All Russian promises end with missiles, drones, bombs or artillery,” he said in his nightly video address. “Diplomacy means nothing to them.”
Russia’s defence ministry said the strike on Kryvyi Rih was targeted at a military gathering, a claim the Ukrainian military denounced as “false information”. “The missile struck a residential area with a playground,” the military’s general staff said on Telegram. The city’s military administrator said after the strike that Russian drones had later attacked private homes there, triggering fires at four sites. Oleksandr Vilkul said an elderly woman had died in her home and five others were injured.
The US secretary of state said Donald Trump was not “going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations” with Russia over Ukraine, adding Washington would know within weeks whether Moscow was serious about pursuing peace. “We’re testing to see if the Russians are interested in peace,” Marco Rubio told journalists in Brussels on Friday after talks with Nato allies. “Their actions – not their words, their actions – will determine whether they’re serious or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.” Pjotr Sauer reports that Rubio also appeared to strike a more sympathetic tone towards Kyiv, saying the Ukrainians “have shown a willingness to enter, for example, into a complete ceasefire”.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had no plans to talk after a visit to Washington by the Russian president’s investment envoy as wider negotiations over a Ukraine truce appeared stalled. According to NBC News on Thursday, Trump’s inner circle was advising him not to ...
