Russia hits seat of Ukraine gov’t in war's biggest air attack

KIEV

Russia fired its biggest-ever aerial barrage at Ukraine early on Sunday, killing at least two people and setting the seat of the Ukrainian government in Kiev ablaze, authorities said.

Drone strikes also damaged several high-rise buildings in Kiev, according to emergency services.

Russia has shown no sign of halting its three-and-a-half-year invasion of Ukraine, pushing hardline demands for ending the war despite efforts by the United States to broker a peace deal.

The barrage came after several European countries, led by France and Britain, pledged on Sept. 4 to deploy "reassurance" forces to Ukraine to patrol a peace deal between the warring sides, a demand Moscow has deemed unacceptable.

The attack on Ukraine's cabinet of ministers, a sprawling government complex at the heart of Kiev, was the first such strike of the war.

Police cordoned off the area surrounding the building.

"The roof and upper floors were damaged due to an enemy attack. Rescuers are extinguishing the fire," Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on Telegram.

"We will restore the buildings. But we cannot bring back lost lives. The enemy terrorizes and kills our people every day throughout the country," she said.

Russia fired at least 805 drones and 13 missiles at Ukraine between late Sept. 6 and early yesterday, in a new record, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said emergency services were working across the country.

"Such killings now, when real diplomacy could have already begun long ago, are a deliberate crime and a prolongation of the war," he said on Facebook.

A strike on a nine-story residential building in the west of Kiev killed at least two people, a mother and her two-month-old son, prosecutors said.

More than a dozen others were wounded in Kiev, according to police.

Ukraine's rescue service posted photos showing the building in flames, while smoke billowed from its facade.

A separate guided bomb attack on the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed a married couple, the region's governor Ivan Fedorov said.

The barrage came after more than two dozen European countries pledged to patrol any agreement to end the war, some of whom said they were willing to deploy troops on the ground.

Kiev says security guarantees, backed by Western troops, are crucial to any peace deal to ensure Russia does not invade again in the future.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin has said any Western forces in Ukraine are unacceptable and would be "legitimate" targets.

Efforts in recent weeks by U.S. President Donald Trump to end the war have so far yielded little progress.

Russia, which denies targeting civilians in Ukraine, occupies around 20 percent of the country in total.

Tens of thousands have been killed in three-and-a-half years of fighting, which has forced millions from their homes and destroyed much of eastern and southern Ukraine in Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II.