Nine killed in strikes on Kyiv, as Ukraine sinks Russian container ship

At least nine people have been killed in Russian ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv, local officials said.

A further 28 people were injured in the attack on the Ukrainian capital on Saturday morning, according to the country's State Emergency Service.

Moscow has escalated deadly ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv recently, prompting President Zelensky to say that missile interceptors are urgently needed.

The strikes come two days after a suspected Russian cruise missile landed in Poland during a widespread attack on Ukraine that killed at least eight people, including six members of one family.

Separately, Ukrainian drones sank a Russian owned container ship in the Black Sea, Zelensky said.

Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital had come under a ballistic missile attack on Saturday, with AFP reporting more than 10 explosions.

Fires broke out across the city and power cuts were reported in some areas.

Klitschko said a residential building in Shevchenkivskyi was partially destroyed, trapping people inside.

The emergency services said at least seven people were killed in a strike in the Darnytskyi district. Another 14 were injured, including two children, it reported.

In Solomyanskyi district, two people died and eight were injured, including two children, as a five-storey residential building was partially destroyed, officials said.

A missile landed near the Lithuanian embassy, breaking windows and scattering debris in the compound, Lithuania's foreign ministry said.

Zelensky confirmed the attack on the sanctioned Russian container ship in a post on X, and said the 100,000 tonne capacity Yanina has been "sent to the bottom".

The ship - owned by Russia's state-owned nuclear operator Rosatom - was sunk early on Saturday, with all of it's 17-member crew forced to abandon it.

Rosatom said it had been transporting civilian goods including frozen food and construction materials.

"Such an attack cannot be interpreted as anything other than piracy and robbery," Rosatom's CEO Alexey Likhachev said.

Stsana Rosatom, a Russian news outlet for the nuclear industry, reported that the attack took place 130 miles (209km) from Novorossiysk, and all 17 crew members "were in good condition."

Ukraine has targeted Russian flagged ships in the Black Sea since Russia's full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. Kyiv has accused Moscow of using it as a way of transporting sanctioned goods, including oil.

The attack on Kyiv comes after Zelensky met President Donald Trump in Washington DC earlier this week to urge the US to grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot interceptor missiles.

Asked about the missiles during a cabinet meeting at the Camp David retreat on Friday, Trump said the US had not agreed to Ukraine building Patriot missiles but that talks were ongoing.

He said the US had to be "very careful about letting somebody build them".

Emphasising concerns about sharing advanced US weaponry, Trump called it "a big step".

Trump's latest comments regarding Patriot missiles come weeks after he offered to give Ukraine the right to produce them.

As Russia has stepped up its air attacks, Ukraine has run low on supplies of Patriots, which remain the only weapon in its arsenal capable of downing ballistic missiles.

"I don't think this would ever happen, but, you know, those people that you give that technology, they can someday turn on you," Trump said.

Zelensky said in a post on X on Friday that he had followed up on his meeting with Trump with a "good" phone call with US Vice-President JD Vance.

"As Russia's air attacks on our country continue unabated, air defence – specifically Patriot interceptors against ballistic missiles – remains a top priority," Zelensky wrote.

For its part, Ukraine has escalated its retaliatory strikes in recent months, including attacks on several retail warehouses belonging to Russia's biggest online retailer, Wildberries.

Kyiv says it is targeting logistics hubs used by Russians to buy military equipment, and disrupting supplies to the Russian army.

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