Russia targets Kyiv with drones, killing 3 and wounding 29

KYIV – Russia targeted Ukraine's capital with drones, killing three people in their homes, authorities said early Sunday.

At least 29 people were wounded, seven of them children, in the second consecutive nighttime attack on Kyiv to claim civilian lives. Ukraine's Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said a 19-year-old woman and her 46-year-old mother were among the killed.

Russian drones caused fires in two residential buildings in the capital's Desnianskyi district. Emergency crews evacuated civilians from a nine-story and a 16-story building, put out flames and cleared the rubble.

Olha Yevhenivha, 74, said there was so much smoke from the fire that she couldn’t leave her apartment.

“Even until now our windows are totally black from the smoke, and it was impossible to go down, so that’s why we put wet blankets on our doors and balcony,” she said.

Ihor Motchanyi, a soccer player, said he and his parents “miraculously survived” after a drone sparked a blaze inside their home the day after his 25th birthday.

“My mother and I left. My father stayed behind in the apartment and wanted to take some documents, the most important things. He couldn’t get out because there was a fire, so he jumped down from the (third) floor" into a nearby tree, Motchanyi told AP.

He said his family were planning to leave Kyiv temporarily, and stay with relatives in a village.

Russia attacked Ukraine with 101 drones overnight into Sunday, according to Ukraine's air force, of which 90 were shot down and neutralized. Five drones hit four locations and drone debris fell on five other places, the statement said.

The attack came a day after a Russian missiles and drones killed four people, including two Kyiv, prompting fresh pleas from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Western air defense systems.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday that over the previous day, its forces struck energy facilities and rail infrastructure serving Ukraine's war effort, as well as other military targets such as troop deployment points and a drone factory.

It did not comment specifically on strikes on Kyiv, nor on the civilian casualties reported by Ukraine.

In Russia’s Bryansk region near Ukraine, two civilians were hospitalized following Ukrainian drone strikes, according to regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz. At least 26 Ukrainian drones were downed over southwestern Russia on Sunday, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

Elsewhere, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country had tested a new atomic-powered missile that can carry a nuclear warhead and confound existing defenses, according to remarks released on Sunday.

The announcement, which followed years of tests, comes as part of nuclear messaging from the Kremlin, which has resisted Western pressure for a ceasefire in Ukraine and strongly warned the U.S. and other NATO allies against sanctioning strikes deep inside Russia with longer-range Western weapons.

Earlier this week, Putin directed drills of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces that featured practice missile launches. The exercise came as his planned summit on Ukraine with U.S. President Donald Trump was put on hold, the latest twist in Trump's stop-and-go effort to resolve the war.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in remarks taped on Saturday that a date for the summit has not been agreed, and that Trump was the one to postpone it after initially suggesting it could take place by the end of the month.

But Peskov insisted that the summit had not been cancelled, and said recent U.S. sanctions against Russia's top oil companies were not a reason to abandon dialogue.

“The presidents can’t meet for the sake of meeting; they can’t waste their time, and they’re open about it,” he said in an interview with Russian state TV released on Sunday, describing peace talks as “a complex process.”

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine