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Russian drone and missile attacks kill 13 people in Ukraine

Chris Graham
Reuters Two rescuers are silhouetted against a backdrop of fire in KyivReuters
Rescuers work at the site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv

Russia launched a wave of drone and missile attacks across Ukraine on Wednesday night, killing at least 13 people, Ukrainian officials said.

A 12-year-old boy was among five victims in the capital, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

Two people were killed in the southeastern city of Dnipro while missile and drone attacks on the southern port city of Odesa killed six people, officials said.

Across the border, two children, aged five and 14, were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia's southern Krasnodar Krai region, its governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram.

The strikes were the latest attacks after a short ceasefire coinciding with Orthdox Easter celebrations at the weekend, during which both sides accused one another of hundreds of violations.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram that as well as the deaths in the capital, rescuers had pulled a mother and child from the ruins of a 16-storey residential building that collapsed in Kyiv's central Podilsky district.

In the north of the capital, four emergency medical workers were among those injured as a result of repeated shelling.

In an attack on the central city of Dnipro, two people were killed and at least 10 people injured, Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the regional administration, wrote on Telegram. Pictures posted online showed buildings ablaze in the city.

Elsewhere, missile and drone attacks on the southern port city of Odesa killed six people, the head of the city's military administration Sergiy Lysak wrote on Telegram.

And in Kharkiv, a drone strike injured a 77-year-old woman and a 66-year-old man, an official said.

Reuters Two women look out of a window of an apartment block at the site of a Russian missile strike in KyivReuters

The war in Ukraine is now in its fifth year and there have been several rounds of peace talks, with the US acting as a mediator.

However, the process has been stalled since US President Donald Trump shifted his focus to the war in the Middle East.

What Ukraine has repeatedly proposed is a full, stable ceasefire as a first step towards negotiating a lasting end to Russia's invasion.

But Moscow insists on agreeing the peace deal first, prompting accusations from Kyiv that Russia is not serious about ending the fighting.