Ukraine-Russia war latest: 14 killed and 40 injured after Putin attacks Kyiv with ballistic missiles and drones

Russia’s top presidential security adviser Sergei Shoigu was expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after arriving in Pyongyang “on special instructions” from president Vladimir Putin, Russia’s Tass news agency reported today.

Mr Shoigu will hold talks with the North Korean “leadership on implementing agreements” reached during his visit earlier in June under the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty signed by the two leaders last year, Tass reported.

It did not elaborate on the details of Mr Shoigu’s expected talks or what the Russian president’s instructions were.

The visit by Mr Shoigu is the third in nearly three months as the two countries rapidly advanced diplomatic and security ties in the past two years, including North Korea’s military support for Russia in the war against Ukraine.

Air defence units intercepted and destroyed 147 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory, including the Moscow region, overnight, the defence ministry said this morning.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin earlier said that two Ukrainian drones headed for Moscow had been repelled.

Efforts by the world’s biggest democracies to toughen sanctions against Russia and hold a joint position on the Middle East crisis look set to be thrown into chaos by Donald Trump.

The US President, who landed in Alberta, Canada late on Sunday night, opened off his remarks at the G7 summit by suggesting it had been a “mistake” to boot Russia out of the former G8.

It had already been reported by CBS News that Mr Trump does not intend to sign a G7 statement related to Israel and Iran, citing unnamed US officials.

At least 14 people were killed and 44 others were injured in a Russian attack on Kyiv overnight, Ukraine’s interior minister said this morning.

The attack damaged residential buildings, educational institutions and critical infrastructure facilities, minister Ihor Klymenko said on his Telegram channel.

US president Donald Trump made a brief one-day visit to the G7 summit in Canada on Monday and largely made headlines for expressing unhappiness over the 2014 expulsion of Vladimir Putin from the group.

“This was a big mistake,” Mr Trump said, adding he believed Russia would not have invaded Ukraine in 2022 had Putin not been ejected from the high-profile group of nations.

“I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in, and you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago,” he said.

“They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake, even though I wasn’t in politics then.

“Putin speaks to me. He doesn’t speak to anybody else … he’s not a happy person about it. I can tell you that he basically doesn’t even speak to the people that threw him out, and I agree with him,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump stopped short of saying Russia should be reinstated in the group.

His remarks come at a time when European nations say they want to persuade the US president to back tougher sanctions against Moscow.

The US leader has indicated that he would rather have the G7 become the G8 or possibly even the G9, adding Russia and China as authoritarian governments to an organisation whose members are otherwise democracies.

“It was a rough start,” said Josh Lipsky, a former senior IMF official who now chairs the international economics department at the Atlantic Council.

At least 16 people were injured after waves of Russian drones and missiles struck districts across the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early this morning, city officials said.

The barrage of drones and missiles used to attack Ukrainian cities damaged an apartment building and sparked fires.

Witnesses told Reuters the drones swarmed over the capital and they also heard what appeared to be missiles overhead.

An air raid alert remained in effect more than seven hours after it had been proclaimed.

Other parts of the country also came under attack, including areas outside the capital and the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, where the regional governor reported at least four strikes.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that most of the 16 injured were in Solomianskyi district, near the city centre, where a drone damaged the top floor of an apartment building and other non-residential areas.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, noted 12 strikes in five districts. Among the targets was a kindergarten in the city’s eastern edge.

“The capital is coming under a combined attack,” Tkachenko wrote.

“The Russians are deploying missiles and strike drones. There are fires in different districts and emergency crews are at work.

“Waves of drones had attacked Solomianskyi district, he said. “This is a very difficult night,” he wrote, adding that there had been power cuts in some areas.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s plans to discuss new weapons purchases for Ukraine with Donald Trump in Canada have been scrapped after the US president said he is leaving the Group of Seven summit a day early.

Mr Trump’s early exit is due to the evolving situation of conflict in the Middle East, the White House said.

Mr Zelensky, who is visiting Austria, is set to attend the Group of Seven summit in Canada today, where he had hoped to meet Mr Trump on the sidelines of the meeting.

“One of the questions that I will discuss with president Trump during the meeting is the defence package that Ukraine is ready to buy,” Mr Zelensky had told a news conference in Vienna.

French president Emmanuel Macron said Mr Trump’s departure was positive, given the objective to get a ceasefire in the Middle East.

G7 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US, along with the European Union, are convening in the resort area of Kananaskis in the Canadian Rockies until this evening.

A US citizen was killed in an overnight air attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, the city’s mayor said this morning.

The 62-year-old American was pronounced dead by doctors in the city, mayor Vitali Klitchsko said on his Telegram channel and gave no other details.

“During the attack on Kyiv, a 62-year-old US citizen died in a dwelling in the Solomianskyi district opposite where medics were providing assistance,” Mr Klitschko wrote. “Medics noted his clinical, biological death.”

The US embassy in Kyiv has not issued a comment immediately.

Officials said Russian forces deployed drones and missiles in the attack on several districts of the capital, with at least 12 people injured.