Zelensky urges allies to seek 'regime change' in Russia
KIEV
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky joins via a video call the opening of the Helsinki +50 Conference, marking the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act in Helsinki, Finland, on July 31, 2025. (Photo by Mikko Stig / Lehtikuva / AFP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged his allies to bring about "regime change" in Russia, hours after a Russian drone and missile attack on Kiev killed 26 people including three children.
The toll previously stood at 16, including two children, but was revised Friday after "rescuers retrieved 10 bodies from the rubble of the residential building in Sviatoshynsky district, including the body of a 2-year-old child", the ministry posted on Telegram.
It also said 159 people were wounded in Thursday's strikes, including 16 children.
One person was also killed in a Russian attack early Friday on Zaporizhzhia, in southeast Ukraine, the region's military administration said on Telegram.
Kiev was observing a day of mourning after Thursday's bombardment, among the deadliest the capital has seen since Russia launched its large-scale offensive in February 2022.
The Russian army meanwhile claimed to have captured Chasiv Yar, a strategically important hillside town in eastern Ukraine where the two sides have been fiercely fighting for months.
Moscow has stepped up its deadly aerial assaults on Ukraine in recent months, resisting U.S. pressure to end its nearly three-and-a-half-year invasion as its forces grind forward on the battlefield.
Speaking virtually to a conference marking 50 years since the signing of the Cold War-era Helsinki Accords, Zelensky said he believed Russia could be "pushed" to stop the war.
"But if the world doesn't aim to change the regime in Russia, that means even after the war ends, Moscow will still try to destabilise neighbouring countries," he said.
Kiev bombarded
From late Wednesday to early Thursday, Russia fired over 300 drones and eight cruise missiles at Ukraine, with Kiev the main target, the Ukrainian air force said.
One missile tore through a nine-storey residential building in the west of the capital, ripping off its facade, authorities said.
AFP journalists at the scene saw rescuers scouring through a smouldering mound of broken concrete, the belongings of residents scattered among the debris.
"It's a shock. I still can't get my bearings. It's very frightening," Valentyna Chestopal, a 28-year-old resident of Kiev, told AFP.
Among the victims was a six-year-old boy who died on the way to hospital, the head of the city's military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, posted on Telegram.
Zelensky said late Thursday that over 150 people had been injured, "including 16 children and six policemen", denouncing the "unimaginable scale of terror and brutality" of the Russian strikes.
The Russian army said it had hit a military airfield, ammunition warehouse and drone production facilities with a combined overnight strike using weaponry and drones.
The attack came just days after U.S. President Donald Trump issued a 10-day ultimatum for Moscow to halt its invasion, now in its fourth year, or face sanctions.
Trump on Thursday blasted Russia's actions in Ukraine, suggesting that new sanctions against Moscow were coming.
"Russia — I think it's disgusting what they're doing. I think it's disgusting," Trump told journalists.
"We're going to put sanctions," he said, before adding: "I don't know that sanctions bother him," referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Key capture in east
Russia said Thursday that it had captured the town of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important military hub for Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.
Zelensky called Moscow's claim "Russian disinformation", saying that "Ukrainian units are defending our positions."
Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko said Russian forces "have full control over the entire northern and eastern part" of Chasiv Yar, including districts that had been hardest to get.
But he said fighting for the western side was ongoing, with the situation "very difficult".
Taking control of Chasiv Yar would be a major military gain for Russia, which has been making steady territorial gains for months.
Home to around 12,000 people before the war but now largely destroyed, the town could allow Russian forces to advance on remaining civilian strongholds in the eastern Donetsk region.
The Kremlin has made the capture of the Donetsk region a priority since it claimed the industrial region as part of Russia in September 2022.
Anti-corruption bill overturned
Thursday's attacks came just hours before Ukrainian lawmakers overturned a highly criticised law, signed by Zelensky last week, that would have curbed the powers of two anti-graft bodies.
Zelensky reversed course after the legislation sparked the biggest public unrest in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began in February 2022.
The original law had put the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) under the direct authority of the prosecutor general, who is appointed by the president.
Critics took to the streets in protest, saying the move would facilitate presidential interference in corruption probes.
The European Union said the bill could derail anti-corruption reforms that are key for joining the bloc.
