By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Dozens of people have been killed and injured, including in the capital, Kyiv, in one of the worst Russian air and missile strikes hitting Ukraine, authorities said Thursday.
With children being among the victims, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cut short a visit to South Africa to deal with the crisis.
Zelenskyy noted it has been “44 days since Ukraine agreed to a complete ceasefire” proposed by the U.S., but Russia “continues to kill people and avoid tough pressure and accountability for this.”
His South African counterpart, President Cyril Ramaphosa, was more cautious in his language, calling on “both parties” to agree to a ceasefire and saying the war had negatively affected both Russia and Ukraine.
However, he later said that Ukraine should be commended for agreeing to an unconditional ceasefire, adding it was “a positive signal that should be embraced.”
Amid the death and destruction, Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said rescuers were still pulling survivors from under the rubble. “The injured included six children and a pregnant woman. A house, cars, and other buildings were set on fire, with extensive damage caused by falling debris in several districts,” he said. Footage obtained by Worthy News underscored the destruction.
“Russia has launched a massive combined strike on Kyiv,” Ukraine’s state emergency service said on social media platform Telegram. “According to preliminary data, nine people were killed, 63 injured.”
OTHERS HIT
Several other towns and cities were also hit, officials said, though Moscow claimed it had targeted Ukraine’s defense industry, including plants that produced “rocket fuel and gunpowder” in overnight strikes.
The news came as Swedish jets intercepted a Russian reconnaissance plane approaching Polish air space. The two Swedish fighter jets under NATO military alliance command were scrambled over the Baltic Sea to escort away the aircraft, military officials said.
The tensions have overshadowed attempts by U.S. President Donald J. Trump to broker a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire. With his first 100 days as the 47th President of the United States approaching, Trump has been eager to add his name to a deal on ending Europe’s bloodiest armed conflict since World War Two.
Trump has lashed out at Zelenskyy, accusing the Ukrainian leader of making “very harmful” statements after he pushed back on ceding occupied Crimea to Russia in a potential peace deal.
On Tuesday, President Zelenskyy ruled out the idea of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia in any deal before talks on Wednesday in London among U.S. European and Ukrainian officials. “There is nothing to talk about – it is our land, the land of the Ukrainian people,” Zelenskyy stressed.
His comments followed media reports that the Trump administration was ready to accept recognition of annexed land in Crimea as Russian territory.
With no peace deal on the horizon yet, Kyiv was reeling Thursday from massive overnight strikes.
NO PEACE?
European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the latest Russian attacks made a mockery of Moscow’s claims of seeking peace. “While claiming to seek peace, Russia launched a deadly airstrike on Kyiv. This isn’t a pursuit of peace; it’s a mockery of it. The real obstacle is not Ukraine but Russia, whose war aims have not changed,” she said on social media.
Other leaders agreed, including Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who said the strikes sent “a clear message from the Kremlin: Russia has no real interest in peace.”
Kyiv, the prime minister noted, “was brutally attacked by Russia again last night. A clear message from the Kremlin: Russia has no real interest in peace.
Peace cannot be negotiated under fire. Denmark stands with Ukraine against this brutality.”
Yet women sang in an underground railway (metro) station in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, amid death and destruction, about their hopes for Ukraine.
Those voices interrupted the noise and fear of Russian missiles and drones in one of the worst such attacks since last summer.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday that countries participating in his Gaza “Board of Peace” have pledged more than $5 billion toward humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts in the Gaza Strip, along with committing thousands of personnel to support new security arrangements in the enclave.
An additional 27 members of Venezuelan transnational criminal organizations, Tren de Aragua and its splinter faction, anti-Tren, have been indicted in New York in an ongoing prosecution of groups the Trump administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
Two pastors in eastern Uganda who were reportedly attacked by a group of Muslim extremists have been discharged from a hospital and are continuing to recover at home, Worthy News learned Sunday.
Western leaders sought to project unity at the 2026 Munich Security Conference despite tensions over U.S. interest in acquiring Greenland, differences on ending the war in Ukraine, and questions surrounding the future of transatlantic cooperation.
The Pentagon is deploying the Navy’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to the Middle East as the United States intensifies preparations for potential military action against Iran.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said over the weekend that Hungary should fear the European Union more than Russia, pledging to dismantle what he called Brussels’ “oppressive machinery” ahead of heated parliamentary elections in April.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pledged to deepen cooperation with a group of four Central and Eastern European nations, including Hungary and Slovakia, despite concerns over their leaders’ perceived authoritarian style and refusal to provide military aid to war-torn Ukraine.