Europe furious as deadly Russian attack damages its Kyiv offices

KYIV - Russian forces pummeled Kyiv overnight into Thursday, sending wave after wave of drones and missiles toward the capital and across the country, killing at least 19 people, including four children, and damaging the offices of the European Union and the British Council.

The European Commission and Britain summoned Russian envoys in Brussels and London to explain the attacks. The E.U. mission and the office of the British Council, the cultural arm of the British Embassy, were damaged by a shock wave from a missile attack on a nearby building. A top E.U. official called President Donald Trump after the strike to insist Russia engage in serious negotiations to end the war.

Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Gen. Keith Kellogg, warned on X that the attacks “threaten the peace that [Trump] is pursuing.”

It was the most ferocious attack on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to yield a ceasefire. The Ukrainian air force said 598 drones and 31 missiles were launched against the country overnight, of which 563 drones and 26 missiles were shot down. Authorities did not say how many of those were directed against Kyiv, but the number of strikes that landed there suggested Ukraine’s air defenses, typically strongest in the capital, were overwhelmed by the volume.

Attack drones and ballistic and cruise missiles battered the city for hours. Loud explosions shook the city center. Local authorities said the strikes affected more than 20 locations, causing fires in residential buildings, damaging a shopping mall and a kindergarten, and leveling part of a five-story apartment block.

By late Thursday afternoon, 18 bodies had been pulled from the rubble of the apartment building and hope was dwindling for survivors. Officials said at least 10 people might still be missing.

Exhausted rescue workers kept digging. Bodies were lined up in black plastic bags and a police officer swabbed the remains for DNA to identify them. Crowds lingered in the thick, smoky heat - relatives waiting for news of loved ones, residents unsure where else to go.

Andrii, 25, and Oleksandr, 30, who grew up in the building and nearby, sat despondent on the curb, waiting for loved ones who had not yet emerged. They had been there since 9 a.m. calling their missing friends, whose phones were not connecting.

The men had followed Trump’s summits with Putin in Alaska and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington and said they were not surprised Russia continued to attack Ukraine.

“I think Trump is Putin’s puppet,” Oleksandr said. “He’s scared. He’s a coward.”

Yura Zanko, 27, brought his 6-year-old daughter, Margarita, to the site so she could see what had unfolded while they huddled in a basement shelter overnight. Putin “doesn’t want to stop the war anytime soon,” he said. “I wanted to show her that this happened to us - that we have to be careful.”

The little girl clutched her purple Stitch stuffed animal and hugged her dad’s side.

A missile strike destroyed a building near the E.U. mission to Ukraine, sending a blast wave through the delegation and a tower where E.U. employees live, its ambassador said.

Staff were “shaken and horrified,” Ambassador Katarina Mathernová said, but there were no injuries. “The war touched them directly last night. The war touched the European Union,” she posted on Facebook. “And no one will convince me that this was not Putin’s intention.”

The offices of the British Council and U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were also damaged. The British Council said it would close until further notice.

A Ukrainian drone manufacturer was listed online as having offices inside the building struck near the foreign facilities. It was not immediately clear if that was the target, but even so, it suggested a potential major security lapse for a business directly involved in Ukraine’s war efforts. A phone number listed online for the company appeared to be disconnected Thursday.

The attack provoked condemnations from European leaders. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Putin, by killing children, was “sabotaging hopes for peace.” French President Emmanuel Macron described it as “terror and barbarism.”

Both the European Commission and Britain have summoned their Russian envoys.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she called Trump after the attack. She said “Putin must come to the negotiating table” and vowed European security guarantees would “turn Ukraine into a steel porcupine.”

Across much of the capital, business continued as usual. Workers swept glass and removed debris from the street housing E.U. diplomats. Hairdressers continued washing, snipping and blow-drying at a popular salon - now without windows or doors. Sam Shuster, a 28-year-old American who serves on the salon’s board of directors, said no clients canceled their appointments.

“We had clients at 9 in the morning, when there was still ash in the sky,” he said. Russia might be “showing muscle” as a negotiating tactic, he said. “But like always, it’s civilians paying the price.”

Russia’s defense ministry said the assault consisted 0f “high precision” strikes by drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and hypersonic Kinzhal missiles against military and industrial targets.

Even as the attacks continue, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, “Russia remains interested in continuing the negotiation process in order to achieve the stated goals through political and diplomatic means.”

Thursday’s strikes are part of an intensifying Russian offensive against Ukraine as Trump tries to end the conflict and Kyiv’s European partners debate security guarantees to protect Ukraine against future aggression by Moscow.

Russian forces, moving steadily forward along the front line, claim to have advanced into Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipro region for the first time - signaling that Putin might intend to fight until he achieves his full war aims.

In addition to regular aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities, including a strike last week on an American-run factory in western Ukraine, Russian forces have targeted the country’s gas and energy infrastructure, Ukrainian officials said. Long-range drones from Ukraine, meanwhile, have struck Russian oil refineries in the past week.

Zelensky said the latest attacks proved that the international community should introduce tougher sanctions against Russia to force it to commit to a ceasefire.

“Russia chooses ballistics over the negotiating table,” he wrote on Telegram. “It chooses to continue the killings rather than end the war.”

Zelensky called for stronger diplomatic reactions from China and Hungary, two countries that have preserved close relations with Russia.

“Russia must feel its responsibility for every strike, for every day of this war,” he wrote.

Ukrainian and Western officials are hammering out a framework for security guarantees that they hope would accompany a peace plan to end the conflict.

But a peace deal still seems to be some distance away. Putin is pushing for territory Russia has not been able to gain by fighting and wants a say in Ukraine’s internal affairs - concessions Kyiv views as a capitulation. He has resisted a meeting with Zelensky.

Trump has sent mixed signals about his role in talks. On Saturday, he signaled that he would take a step back from the process. But during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, he threatened to unleash “economic war” on Russia if Putin didn’t meet with Zelensky to resolve the conflict.

On Thursday, Trump was “not happy” about the Russian assault, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, “but he was also not surprised.” She noted the Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.

“These are two countries that have been at war for a very long time,” Leavitt said. “Perhaps, both sides of this war are not ready to end it themselves.”

Putin, having occupied and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He has not moved from his demands, which in addition to territory and influence include Ukraine’s demilitarization and permanent bans on it joining NATO or the E.U.

Zelensky has called repeatedly for a ceasefire and then negotiations.

Hope for a quick resolution was in short supply in Kyiv on Thursday, but it wasn’t nonexistent. Lydia, 56, an accountant who lives next door to the damaged building, said Trump is letting Putin play him while Ukrainians die. “Even though we are simple people, we understand you have to be more decisive toward Putin,” she said. “He just realized everything he does he will get away with, and no one will react strongly to it. He’s killing children.”

Oleksandr Podstavkin, 60, survived the strike but will probably not be able to move back into his severely damaged apartment. He sat outside clutching a small crate housing his orange cat, Murka. Rescue workers helped him back into the building to find her under the bed on Thursday afternoon. In a scene of horrors, recovering her felt like a small miracle.

Podstavkin said he was hopeful Trump’s meeting with Putin would bear positive results. “We were praying, watching the meeting, and hoping that peace would come,” he said. Did he still feel hope? He shrugged. “Hope dies last.”

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Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, Ellen Francis in Brussels and David Lauter in Washington contributed to this report.