Ukraine pleads for air defence aid after Russia launches more missile strikes on Kyiv

Russia has launched its third wave of missile strikes against Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in five days, as part of its escalating aerial bombardment of the city.

Five people were injured in the strike, with two of them taken to hospital, said the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, as Ukraine’s foreign minister called on international allies to supply more air defences to his country.

The injuries and damage appear to have been the result of falling missile debris as the Ukrainian air force said it had shot down two missiles over the city.

Frontlines in the war have remained largely static despite recent renewed and highly costly Russian efforts to advance in the Donbas region and the capture of some settlements.

Monday’s strikes occurred amid Russian attempts to suggest a link between Friday’s deadly terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall and Ukraine. The attack has been claimed by Islamic State, whose media channel released body camera footage from devices worn by the assailants, who have been identified as citizens of Tajikistan.

Analysts have suggested that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, may however try to use the attack, which killed 137 people, as a pretext to escalate attacks on Ukraine.

The Monday morning strikes on Kyiv badly damaged a three-storey building, officials said. “In the (central) Pechersk district, a multi-storey non-residential building was damaged,” the city’s military administration wrote on Telegram.

The US ambassador to Kyiv, Bridget Brink, said Russia had used hypersonic missiles to attack the Ukrainian capital. “Over the last five days, Russia has launched hundreds of missiles and drones against a sovereign country,” she said.

“There are no atrocities Russian bastards would not commit, including an attempt of a ballistic strike at the heart of a multimillion city,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said on X.

“This is a reminder that Ukraine urgently requires more air defence, particularly Patriot systems and missiles capable of repelling any Russian attack,” he said.

Russia fired two ballistic missiles at Kyiv from occupied Crimea in the daylight attack, but both were intercepted above the city, Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said. Several explosions were heard in the city, in the latest scare for residents.

Both Russia and Ukraine have increased the tempo of their air attacks in recent weeks as Kyiv, which has struggled to find weapons and soldiers after more than two years of war, has promised to retaliate by taking the fighting to Russian soil.

A number of Ukrainian air attacks on Saturday on the Russian border region of Belgorod, adjoining Ukraine killed two people and injured at least seven, the regional governor said.

Russia also struck critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s western region of Lviv with missiles early on Sunday, in a major airstrike that saw one Russian cruise missile briefly fly into Polish airspace, prompting a protest from Warsaw.

That in turn had followed the largest aerial bombardment of Ukraine’s energy system in more than two years of full-scale war, raising concerns about the trajectory of the conflict.