Russia hit Kyiv with five missiles as United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was visiting Ukraine’s capital, and less than an hour after Guterres held a news conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Two of the rockets landed in central Kyiv, wounding at least 10 people, and one of them struck near the hotel where Guterres and his delegation are staying, his spokesman told CBS News, adding that the secretary-general and his staff are safe.
Guterres, who was in Moscow on Tuesday, told BBC News he’s “shocked” Kyiv was hit during his visit. Zelensky said in his daily video message that the missile attack in Kyiv, “immediately after the end of our talks” with Guterres, “says a lot about Russia’s true attitude to global institutions, about the Russian leadership’s efforts to humiliate the U.N. and everything that the organization represents. And therefore requires an appropriate, powerful response.”
Earlier Thursday, “experts and lawmakers on Russian state TV were advocating the need to strike the Ukrainian railways and cities when foreign leaders come to visit, which is exactly what Russia did by carrying out strikes on Kyiv while Guterres and [Bulgarian Prime Minister] Kiril Petkov were there,” The Daily Beast‘s Julia Davis reported.
“The capital had slowly come back to life this month as beleaguered Russian troops withdrew from the region,” The Washington Post reports. “But recent attacks reported in central and western Ukraine have underscored that the fighting will not be contained to the east.” Elsewhere on Thursday, “explosions were reported across the country, in Polonne in the west, Chernihiv near the border with Belarus, and Fastiv, a large railway hub southwest of the capital,” The Associated Press reports. “The mayor of Odessa, in southern Ukraine, said rockets were intercepted by air defenses.”
