Two killed in strikes on Kyiv as US resumes arms supplies

Two deaths have been reported in Ukraine after hundreds of Russian drone and missile attacks on the capital Kyiv.

Officials said that 13 people were injured when apartments and non-residential buildings were struck.

The attacks came as the United States resumed weapons delivery to Ukraine.

“Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouse facilities, office and non-residential buildings are on fire,” head of Kyiv’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said on social media.

The attack came a day after Russia launched a record number of drones at Ukraine.

After US President Donald Trump pledged earlier this week to send more defensive weapons to Kyiv, Washington is delivering artillery shells and mobile rocket artillery missiles, according to two US officials.

Watch: Kyiv struck by Russian drones overnight

There were explosions across Kyiv following the latest Russian assault, witnesses said, while videos showed damaged building as well as cars burned out.

Officials said that damage was reported in six of the Ukrainian capital’s ten districts.

The Shevchenkivskyi area suffered significant damage to residential buildings, the district’s head said on Telegram.

Thick smoke covered parts of Kyiv. Air raids in the city lasted more than four hours, according to Ukraine’s air force.

Closer to the battle zone, three people were killed and one injured in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, emergency services said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held a “substantive” meeting yesterday with US Special Envoy Keith Kellogg in Italy ahead of a Ukrainian recovery conference in what Kyiv described as a “substantive” conversation.

Mr Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with President Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian leader is throwing a lot of “bulls**t” at American efforts to end the war that began after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The US leader described Mr Putin’s statements on moving towards peace as “meaningless”.

Moscow responded that it would continue to try to fix a “broken” US-Russia relationship.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers’ meeting in Malaysia, the State Department in Washington and Russia’s foreign ministry said.

The meeting, in the capital Kuala Lumpur, will be the second in-person encounter between the men.

The first took place in Saudi Arabia in February as part of the Trump administration’s effort to re-establish bilateral relations and help negotiate an end to the war.

President Trump has said he is considering supporting a bill that would impose steep sanctions on Russia, including 500% tariffs on countries that buy oil, gas, uranium and other products from Moscow.