Ukraine-Russia war latest: Girl among four killed in ‘brutal’ attack on Kyiv while Denmark bans drone flights – UK Times

A 12-year-old girl was among four killed and at least 70 injured after a 12-hour Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine, with the capital Kyiv suffering the heaviest assault.

The air assault, which took place overnight and into Sunday, was the first major bombardment since a similar attack killed at least 21 people last month.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the “vile” bombardment that lasted more than 12 hours and involved nearly 600 drones and several dozen missiles.

News of the destruction came as Denmark’s defence ministry said that it had observed drones at several of its armed forces’ locations overnight for a second consecutive day.

Talks on reducing strategic nuclear weapons must first be conducted between Russia and the US, but the arsenals of Britain and France will ultimately have to be included in negotiations, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said.

Peskov’s remarks come amid a Kremlin proposal to the US this month to voluntarily maintain for a year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in their New START arms control treaty once it expires next year if the US does the same.

“Naturally, we have to start talks at the bilateral level. New START is after all a bilateral document,” Peskov told TASS.

“But in the long term, you cannot remain abstract with these arsenals. All the more so that these arsenals are a component of the overall problem of global European security and strategic stability.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Putin’s proposal sounded “pretty good,” but the issue was up to US president Donald Trump.

The US president has said he wants to open denuclearisation talks with Russia and China.

Writing on social media platform X, Mr Zelensky said of the attack that took place over Saturday night and into Sunday: “A massive Russian attack on Ukraine lasted for more than 12 hours. Savage strikes, a deliberate, targeted terror against ordinary cities – nearly 500 attack drones and over 40 missiles.

“The main targets of the enemy strikes were Kyiv and the region, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, and Odesa regions. In the capital, the building of the Cardiology Institute was damaged.

“As of now, four people have been reported killed in Kyiv, including a 12-year-old girl. My condolences to all the families and loved ones. Across Ukraine, at least 40 people are known to have been injured, including children.”

Russia has claimed that Ukraine’s negotiating positions are “deteriorating” after it launched hundreds of drones and missiles at the country.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed on state television on Sunday: “With every passing day, the situation for Ukraine is inexorably deteriorating. And every day Ukraine’s negotiating positions are inexorably deteriorating.”

His comments come after Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine early on Sunday.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky again urged the international community to act decisively to cut off Russia’s energy revenues that fund its invasion after the attack.

“The time for decisive action is long overdue, and we count on a strong response from the United States, Europe, the G7, and the G20,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia failed to win enough support on Saturday to get elected to the United Nations aviation agency’s governing council, in the latest rebuke of Moscow for actions taken after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Russia received 87 votes, just short of the 93 votes it needed to win back a seat on the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s 36-nation governing council during the agency’s assembly, which runs through October 3 in Montreal.

Russia in 2022 lost its spot on the first part of the council, which includes countries like China, Brazil, the United States and Australia as “states of chief importance in air transport,” following its invasion of Ukraine.

A Russian representative immediately called for “a repeat round of voting,” which was not accepted by the assembly.

The front line on the battlefield in Ukraine has grown in length to nearly 1,250 kilometers (800 miles), stretching Kyiv’s defences, while Russian forces employ a new tactic of sending swarms of small assault groups to infiltrate Ukrainian lines, Ukraine’s top military commander says.

The line of contact has grown by roughly 200 kilometres (120 miles) over the past year, and Ukrainian forces are averaging between 160 and 190 combat engagements every day with Russia’s bigger army, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a review of the battlefield situation.

Read the full report from Hanna Arhirova and Barry Hatton here:

People try to clear the damage and locate their belongings at the scene of a Russian strike in Kyiv on Sunday.

One recent incursion was in Aalborg airport, in north Denmark, which closed on Friday following the drone sightings, while Esbjerg, Sonderborg and Skrydstrup regions all remained open despite similar incidents.

They came just two days after Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen refused to rule out Russian involvement when drone sightings forced Copenhagen airport into shutdown for four hours, in what she described as a “serious attack on critical Danish infrastructure”.

Reporter Alex Ross looks at the ongoing threat:

In an address from Kyiv, the Ukrainian leader insisted that European seas must be closed to Russia.

He said that “intelligence now indicates that the Russians are using tankers to launch and operate drones against European countries.”

Zelensky continued: “This is yet more evidence why the Baltic Sea and other seas must be closed to Russian tankers – at the very least to the shadow fleet.”