Russia announced on Friday that it conducted an attack on Kyiv during the arrival of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had deployed “high-precision, long-range air-based weapons” that “destroyed the production buildings of the Artyom missile and space enterprise in Kyiv.”
The attack was the first against the Ukrainian capital in over two weeks, and it also claimed the life of a journalist.
Vera Gyrych, a journalist for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was murdered when a Russian missile hit the building where she lived in Kyiv, according to the media group.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes, which immediately followed his talks with the UN chief, were an attempt by Russia “to humiliate the UN and everything that the organisation represents”.
Earlier that day, Guterres had toured Bucha and other Kyiv suburbs where Moscow was alleged to have committed war crimes. Russia, however, denied killing civilians.
Germany said the “inhumane” attack showed Russian President Vladimir Putin had “no respect whatsoever for international law.”
It was gathered that the powerful blast had ripped out walls and doors, leaving piles of rubble on the ground.
“I think Russians aren’t afraid of anything, not even the world’s judgement,” the deputy director of a heavily damaged clinic, Anna Hromovych, told newsmen as she and others were cleaning up the devastation on Friday.
Putin was said to be, nevertheless, due to attend November’s G20 summit, according to President Joko Widodo of host nation Indonesia. Zelensky had also been invited.