Zelenskyy calls for more pressure on Russia after deadly missile strike in Ukrainian capital Kyiv

Kyiv drone and missile attack kills 28, as Russia rejects ceasefire, intensifies war; Ukraine seeks global pressure on Moscow.

A Russian missile strike on a nine-story Kyiv apartment building was a sign that more pressure must be applied on Moscow to agree to a ceasefire, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday (June 19, 2025), as Moscow intensifies attacks in the war.

The drone and missile attack on Kyiv early Tuesday, the deadliest assault on the capital this year, killed 28 people across the city and wounded 142 others, Kyiv Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said.

Mr. Zelenskyy, along with the head of the presidential office, Andrii Yermak, and Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, visited the site of the apartment building in Kyiv's Solomianskyi district on Thursday morning, laying flowers and paying tribute to the 23 people who died there after a direct hit by a missile brought down the structure.

“This attack is a reminder to the world that Russia rejects a ceasefire and chooses killing,” Mr. Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, and thanked Ukraine's partners who he said are ready to pressure Russia to “feel the real cost of the war.”

Tuesday's attack on Kyiv was part of a sweeping barrage as Russia once again sought to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences. Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles in what Mr. Zelenskyy called one of the biggest bombardments of the war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.

As Russia proceeds with a summer offensive on parts of the roughly 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line, U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to gain traction. Russian President Vladimir Putin has effectively rejected an offer from U.S. President Donald Trump for an immediate 30-day ceasefire, making it conditional on a halt on Ukraine's mobilisation effort and a freeze on Western arms supplies.

Meanwhile, Middle East tensions and U.S. trade tariffs have drawn away world attention from Ukraine's pleas for more diplomatic and economic pressure to be placed on Moscow.