Russia strikes Kyiv with missiles as western leaders meet in Europe

Russia shattered weeks of calm in the Ukrainian capital with long-range missiles fired toward Kyiv early Sunday, an apparent Kremlin show-of-force as western leaders meet in Europe to strengthen their military and economic support of Ukraine.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the missiles hit at least two residential buildings, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a 37year-old man was killed and his seven-year-old daughter and wife injured. Associated Press journalists saw emergency workers battling flames and rescuing civilians.

The strikes also damaged a nearby kindergarten, where a crater pocked the courtyard. U.S. President Joe Biden called the attacks “barbarism” after he arrived in Germany for a Group of Seven summit.

Later Sunday, a local official reported a second death, telling the Unian news agency that a railroad worker was killed and several others were injured in the attacks while servicing rail infrastructure.

Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ignat said the first airlaunched weapons successfully to target the capital since June 5 were Kh-101 cruise missiles fired from warplanes over the Caspian Sea, more than 1,500 kilometres away.

Kyiv’s mayor told journalists he thought the airstrikes were “maybe a symbolic attack” ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid that starts Tuesday. A former commander of U.S. forces in Europe said the strikes also were a signal to the leaders of G7 nations meeting Sunday in Germany.

“Russia is saying, ‘We can do this all day long. You guys are powerless to stop us,’ ” retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. army forces in Europe, said. “The Russians are humiliating the leaders of the west.”

The G7 leaders were set to announce the latest in a long series of international economic steps to pressure and isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine: new bans on imports of Russian gold. Standing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the three-day meeting’s host, Biden said of the missile strikes on Kyiv: “It’s more of their barbarism.”

Zelenskyy, speaking in his nightly video address, appealed to the G7 leaders for more help, saying stopping Russian aggression “is possible only if we get everything we ask for, and in the time we need it — weapons, financial support and sanctions against Russia.”

A Ukrainian parliament member, Oleksiy Goncharenko, wrote on a messaging app that preliminary information indicated that Russia launched 14 missiles toward the capital region and Kyiv itself.