Ukrainian rescue teams recovered Wednesday more bodies from the wreckage of a nine-story apartment building in Kyiv destroyed a day earlier by a Russian missile strike, bringing the death toll to 28.
The building in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district took a direct hit and collapsed during the deadliest Russian attack on Kyiv this year. Authorities said that 23 of those killed were inside the building. The remaining five were killed elsewhere in the city.
Workers used cranes, excavators and their hands to clear more debris from the site Wednesday and sniffer dogs searched for buried victims. The blast also blew out windows and doors in neighboring buildings in a wide radius of damage.
The attack overnight on Monday into Tuesday was part of a sweeping barrage – Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was one of the biggest bombardments of the war, now in its fourth year.
Russia has launched a summer offensive on parts of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line and has intensified long-range attacks that have struck urban residential areas.
At the same time, U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to gain traction. Also, Middle East tensions and U.S. trade tariffs have drawn world attention away from Ukraine’s pleas for more diplomatic and economic pressure to be placed on Russia.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said the attack clashed with the attempts by the administration of President Donald Trump to reach a settlement that will stop the fighting.
"This senseless attack runs counter to President Trump’s call to stop the killing and end the war," the embassy posted on social platform X.
Kyiv authorities declared Wednesday an official day of mourning. Mourners laid flowers on swings and slides at a playground across the street from the collapsed building. On Tuesday, a man had waited hours there for his 31-year-old son’s body to be pulled from the rubble.
Valentin Hrynkov, a 64-year-old handyman in a local school who lived on the seventh floor of a connected building that did not collapse, said he and his wife woke up to the sound of explosions followed by a pause, and then another blast that rattled their own building.
He said his wife had shrapnel injuries in her back and his legs and feet were cut by broken glass. The damage trapped them in their apartment for around 30 minutes before rescue workers could free them, he said.
He felt an overwhelming sense of "helplessness and primal fear” during the attack, he told The Associated Press.
