Russia strikes Ukraine as outgoing British leader Keir Starmer heads to Kyiv
By Jessie Yeung and Victoria Butenko, CNN
(CNN) — Russian missiles struck Kyiv early Thursday, with loud explosions heard in the Ukrainian capital just hours before British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to arrive for a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The attack hit two districts of Kyiv and killed two people, including a teenager, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. The strike caused fires at warehouses and nearby vehicles, it said.
The attack came ahead of Starmer’s visit to Kyiv on Thursday – one of his final international engagements before he makes way for a new prime minister.
Starmer and Zelensky are set to discuss progress made in the war against Russia, including the UK’s efforts to support Ukraine both militarily and diplomatically.
“I am so proud of what Britain has contributed,” Starmer said in a statement. “That work will continue, and our cast-iron support for Ukraine will always endure. Not just for them and for European security, but for families in Britain who have felt the cost of this war through rising prices.”
The Thursday attack also comes after Zelensky dismissed Ukraine’s defense minister, Mykhaylo Fedorov, in a government reshuffle. Just days earlier, Zelensky had also dismissed Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who had only served a year in office.
The reshuffle has been controversial, with some critics warning it could cause instability at a critical time of the war, Reuters reported. Fedorov led Ukraine’s war effort, including the technological evolution that has made Kyiv such a formidable opponent.
In a statement late Wednesday, Fedorov said it had been a “great honor” to serve in his role. He praised his team’s achievements during his tenure – including beefing up Ukraine’s drone program and air defenses, significantly increasing its forces’ ability to intercept Russian drones and cruise missiles.
Ukraine also successfully carried out a ballistic missile test, he revealed – conducted, “symbolically, on the day the government was formed.”
Nearly five years into the conflict, the toll has been heavy for both sides. Ukraine’s advanced drone campaign has had extraordinary scale and impact, especially in the past month. Kyiv has sometimes launched hundreds of drones in a single night, targeting oil refineries, naval vessels and weapons, showing an increasing ability to strike deep into Russian territory.
Some of these attacks forced Moscow to suspend traffic this week through the gateway to the Black Sea, a key waterway that had for years been out of Kyiv’s reach – limiting the Kremlin’s ability to trade with the rest of the world.
But Ukraine is feeling the pain, too. June was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, the United Nations said this week – an increase driven by long-range Russian missiles fired into urban residential buildings.
Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded with allies to provide more support in bolstering Ukraine’s depleted air defenses – including the tentative go-ahead from the US to manufacture its own Patriot intercepters, the only weapon that can take down some of Russia’s most advanced ballistic missiles.
In a surprise announcement on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey last week, US President Donald Trump publicly gave Ukraine the green light to make the Patriots – though he was vague in his wording and admitted he had not yet discussed the issue with the US manufacturers of the systems.
The-CNN-Wire
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