Two killed in Russian strike on Kyiv as Ukraine confirms Kursk incursion

At least two people have been killed and three others wounded in an overnight Russian air strike outside of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials have said.

A four-year-old boy and his 35-year-old father were killed in the attack on Sunday just east of Kyiv, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed involved a North Korean-made missile.

In a post on X, Zelenskyy offered his condolences to the family of the pair who he said were “tragically killed”.

“Three other people were injured, including a 12-year-old boy,” he said.

There has been no immediate comment from Russia on the attack.

Moscow’s overnight strike also included 57 Iranian-made attack drones that were launched across Ukraine, 53 of which were destroyed by air defences, Kyiv’s air force claimed.

Moreover, on Sunday, Gennadiy Trukhanov, the mayor of Odesa, said on Telegram that an explosion had been “heard in the city”, and called on residents to stay in shelters.

Zelenskyy reiterated his calls to Ukraine’s allies for “a full-fledged air shield that can protect all our cities and communities”.

Ukraine admits Kursk incursion

Sunday’s attack on Kyiv comes as Ukraine braces for more Russian attacks in retaliation for its recent cross-border incursion into the Kursk region.

Kyiv dispatched hundreds of servicemen backed by armoured vehicles, artillery and drones to the Kursk region on Tuesday, according to Russian officials, Ukrainian servicemen and media reports.

On Saturday, Zelenskyy acknowledged that Ukrainian forces were indeed fighting in Kursk, and said the operation was part of Kyiv’s attempt to restore justice after Russia invaded his country in 2022.

“Today, I received several reports from commander-in-chief [Oleksandr] Syrsky regarding the front lines and our actions to push the war onto the aggressor’s territory,” he said.

“I am grateful to every unit of the defence forces for ensuring that. Ukraine is proving that it can indeed restore justice and ensure the necessary pressure on the aggressor,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the people of Ukraine.

According to reporters with the news agency AFP, armoured Ukrainian vehicles daubed with a white triangle, an insignia used to identify hardware being used by Ukraine for its offensive in Russia’s western Kursk region, have been seen traversing the border region of Sumy.

Kyiv’s army has mounted its incursion inside Russian territory from the Sumy region, located in northeastern Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the incursion a “large-scale provocation” by Ukraine, and the Russian military’s chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, promised to crush it.

Russian authorities have also declared a “federal-level” state of emergency in Kursk.

On Sunday, Kursk’s acting Governor Alexei Smirnov said at least 15 people were injured in the region’s capital, also called Kursk, after debris from a destroyed Ukrainian missile fell onto a nine-storey residential building.

“Everyone is receiving the necessary medical care,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

As fighting in the area intensified on Saturday, Russian state news agency TASS reported that more than 76,000 people had been evacuated.

Ukraine also announced it has evacuated 20,000 people from the Sumy region, which sits across the border from Kursk.

On Sunday, Russia’s army said it has halted Ukraine’s advance into its western region of Kursk in several places, hitting soldiers and equipment in areas up to 30km (20 miles) from their shared border.

But Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, warned that “a tough response from the Russian army will not be long in coming”.

Her comments came shortly after Sunday’s attack in Kursk.

“We strongly condemn these barbaric terrorist acts aimed at destroying civilian infrastructure, killing and intimidating civilians,” she said.

Zakharova also called on international organisations to condemn them.

“Although we are sure that the response will be shameful silence from the relevant structures,” she added.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Moscow’s ally Belarus also said it would send more troops to its border with Ukraine, saying Ukrainian drones had violated its airspace as part of Kyiv’s military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

At a meeting in Minsk, Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko said: “The Ukrainian armed forces violated all rules of conduct and violated the airspace of the Republic of Belarus. In the eastern direction, very close to us in the Kostyukovichi district.”

The spokesman of the State Border Service of Ukraine, Andrii Demchenko, has said that “the situation on the border with Belarus is unchanged and fully controlled; the movement of equipment or personnel has not been recorded”.

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