Death toll in Kiev rises to 16 as wave of Russian attacks defies Trump's call for ceasefire

Sixteen people were killed and 155 others injured when Russian drones and missiles hit several neighborhoods of Kiev, causing a building to collapse overnight, officials said.

A six-year-old boy and his mother were among the dead, while more than two dozen locations in the Ukrainian capital were hit.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said two children were killed and 16 were among the wounded. The mayor of Kiev said it was the highest number of casualties in one night since the start of the all-out war.

Russian attacks continued despite US President Donald Trump's threat of tougher sanctions against Moscow if Vladimir Putin did not agree to a ceasefire by August 8.

“Both Russia and Ukraine must negotiate a ceasefire and a lasting peace. It is time to reach an agreement,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Kelley told the UN Security Council on Thursday. “President Trump has made it clear that this must happen by August 8.”

The loud noise of Russian drones could be heard over the city for hours, punctuated by loud, loud crashes from missile attacks.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 309 drones and eight cruise missiles overnight. And while officials say air defenses destroyed many of them, there were numerous hits, including from cruise missiles.

A red-orange glow indicated destruction on the ground.

These were the largest airstrikes since Trump gave Putin an earlier deadline. The threat of further US sanctions appears to have done little to persuade the Russian president to change course.

Meanwhile, Russia reported further successes on the battlefield, saying it had captured the strategically important mountain town of Khasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region.

However, Ukraine denied it had fallen, and military analysts said fighting continued there.

Three of the victims in Kiev were at the site of the apartment building.

"A whole entrance has been destroyed. Rescuers are clearing the rubble," said Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.

The death toll rose throughout the day, and late in the evening, the Interior Ministry announced that 16 people had lost their lives.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the capital was the target of Russia's nighttime attacks.

"The world has seen once again how Russia is responding to our desire for peace, the desire of America and Europe. With even more demonstrative killings," he wrote on social media.

"This is why peace is impossible without force."

According to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, the Sviatoshynskyi and Solomyansky districts of Kiev were hit hardest by the attack, which left one person dead and 20 others injured.

The windows of a children's ward in a hospital in the Shevchenkivskyi district were shattered by a shock wave, the mayor of Kiev announced on Telegram.

One of the city's higher education institutions, a school, and a kindergarten were also damaged.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it was a "terrible morning" in Kiev and that "people are still under the rubble."

Sybiha added that Trump had been "very generous and patient" with Putin, but that now was the time to exert "maximum pressure on Moscow" through sanctions.

In early July, Trump had given the Kremlin 50 days to reach a ceasefire with Kiev, or face economic sanctions.

On Monday, during a visit to the UK, Trump shortened that deadline to "ten or twelve days" and expressed his disapproval of Putin's actions in Ukraine, more than three years after Moscow began its full-scale invasion of the country.

Trump did not say whether he thought the Russian president had "lied" to him, but said there was a discrepancy between Putin's rhetoric during their personal talks and the missiles that were "fired" at Ukrainian cities.

"We were trying to achieve a ceasefire and maybe even peace... and suddenly missiles are flying towards Kiev and other places," Trump said.

Meanwhile, on the front lines in eastern Ukraine, Kiev denied Russian claims that the town of Khasiv Yar had finally fallen after a battle that began in April last year.

After 16 months of fighting, little remains of Khasiv Yar, but Ukrainian reports quoted military officials as saying that the Russians were spreading disinformation.

The open-source intelligence project DeepState suggested that the Russians had taken control of the eastern and northern parts of Khasiv Yar, but fighting continued in other areas.

Control of the high ground on which the city sits would give Russia a key point from which to attack the Donetsk region's major cities to the west, including Druzhivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Ukrainian forces have faced superior numbers of Russian troops on the front lines throughout the war, but reports of stalemates in the east have left another key Russian objective increasingly vulnerable.

The town of Pokrovsk, located about 60 km southwest of Khasiv Yar, is currently considered the hottest spot on the front line. Analysts fear that the thousands of Ukrainians defending the town could be in danger of being surrounded by Russian troops.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce930z8g9mvo