The death toll from the latest Russian attacks on Kiev has risen to 16, the civil defence agency said on Thursday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky called for Western sanctions on Moscow to be ramped up.
Russia launched one of its longest air assaults in the more than four-year war on Ukraine overnight, virtually destroying an entire residential block in Kiev, according to Zelensky.
The fate of more than a dozen people who may have been in the building remains unknown.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said around 50 people had been injured in the capital.
Zelensky said in his daily evening address that a residential building in Kiev had been struck by a Kh-101 missile which "was manufactured in the second quarter of this year."
"This means Russia is still importing the components, resources, and equipment necessary for missile production in circumvention of global sanctions," he said.
"Stopping Russia’s sanctions evasion schemes must be a genuine priority for all our partners," Zelensky said, demanding that "sanctions must be more painful for Russia."
Earlier, the Ukrainian president had said that 180 structures were damaged in the latest attacks, 50 of them ordinary apartment blocks. Seven people had been injured in the region around Kiev, 28 in Kharkiv and two in Odessa, according to Zelensky.
The previous day, Russian forces had also carried out one of their heaviest attacks since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, using more than 800 drones. At least six people were killed and dozens injured, according to Zelensky.
The attacks followed a three-day pause in the fighting as Russia marked the anniversary of the end of World War II with a military parade on Moscow's Red Square.
The Kremlin rejected an offer of an extension to the ceasefire from Kiev.
Zelensky on Thursday evening also thanked Germany for its continued support, after meeting with the head of the chancellery, Thorsten Frei, and the head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, Martin Jäger.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed his country's solidarity on X.
"The most intense Russian attacks on Ukraine in a long time show: Moscow is opting for escalation rather than negotiation. We remain firmly on Ukraine’s side," he wrote on X.
