The UK and European Union have summoned their Russian envoys after overnight missile strikes on Kyiv killed at least 18 people and damaged the city’s British Council and EU offices in the most deadly aerial assault on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
Four children are among the 17 reported dead after a residential building was struck in the middle of the night within the eastern Darnytskyi district, according to Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko.
Hours later, another person was killed in a separate blast in Kyiv’s central Shevchenkivskyi district, which left the buildings and offices – including those housing the EU delegation to Ukraine and the British Council – severely damaged.
The incident marks the first time British government property has been caught up in a Russian attack since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air force said the nation had been targeted with 629 missiles and drones overnight, one of the biggest aerial attacks mounted by Russia since the February 2022 invasion. A wave of strikes could be heard from the city centre after 3am and again, more loudly, shortly after 5.30am. Officials reported impacts at more than 20 locations around Kyiv. A further 38 people were wounded.
Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said the strikes threatened the US president’s proposals to end the war. “These egregious attacks threaten the peace that [Trump] is pursuing,” Kellogg said on social media, noting that they hit “innocent civilians” and EU and British missions in the Ukrainian capital.
The Foreign Office in London summoned Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Andrey Kelin, at 1pm, in direct response to the severe damage inflicted on the building, government sources said.
“Putin’s strikes last night killed civilians, destroyed homes and damaged buildings, including the British Council and EU Delegation in Kyiv,” the foreign secretary, David Lammy, posted on X.
“We have summoned the Russian ambassador. The killing and destruction must stop.”
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, condemned the attacks as “senseless” and accused Russia of “sabotaging hopes of peace”.
Photos circulated by the British Council showed the building with its windows and entrance smashed open and surrounded by glass and debris. Separate pictures released by the commission showed wrecked office interiors with collapsed ceiling panels and shattered glass doors and windows.
While the British Council’s offices suffered significant damage, they are not believed to have been directly hit by Russian strikes, but struck by shrapnel. A guard who was injured was “shaken but stable”, Scott McDonald, the British Council chief executive, said.
The offices of the EU delegation were “severely damaged by the shock wave” from the blast, Katarína Mathernová, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, said.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the onslaught showed that Russia had no intention of negotiating an end to the war. “These Russian missiles and attack drones today are a clear response to everyone in the world who, for weeks and months, has been calling for a ceasefire and for real diplomacy,” the president said on social media. “Russia chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table.”
Aerial bombardment of Kyiv had been relatively muted during August, when Trump made a failed attempt to bring about an end to the war by meeting Putin in Alaska.
But the overnight attack indicated Russia was ready to return to its deadly campaign of bombing cities, even though Trump has previously complained about such attacks and threatened to impose sanctions on Russian oil if they continued.
The attack included 11 ballistic missiles, 20 Kh-101 cruise missiles and 598 Shahed and decoy drones. A large proportion were intercepted or jammed, but three high-speed ballistic missiles, one Kinzhal and two Iskanders, as well as two cruise missiles were not stopped, according to the air force data.
A wave of strikes could be heard from the city centre after 3am and again, more loudly, shortly after 5.30am. Officials reported impacts at more than 20 locations around Kyiv. A further 38 people were wounded in the attacks, officials added.
Trump has been hoping to set up a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy after he met Putin in Alaska two weeks ago and Zelenskyy days later in Washington.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said that there would “obviously” be no such meeting.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said it was evident Moscow had no interest in negotiating an end to the war. “The intense attacks on Kyiv last night demonstrate who stands on the side of peace and who has no intention of believing in the negotiating path,” she said.
The Kremlin said on Thursday it was “still interested” in diplomacy but would continue to launch strikes on Ukraine.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement the strikes “shows that the Kremlin will stop at nothing to terrorise Ukraine, blindly killing civilians – men, women and children and even targeting the European Union”.
Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said on X: “The overnight attack on Kyiv shows a deliberate choice to escalate and mock the peace efforts.”
In a separate post, she added: “No diplomatic mission should ever be a target.”
EU officials said two missiles landed within 50 metres of the building within 20 seconds.
The British Council’s offices are seen as a representation of Britain’s soft power in Ukraine. For the last 30 years the organisation has worked as a bridge between London and Kyiv, offering academic links, arts programmes and English courses.
Starmer said on X: “My thoughts are with all those affected by the senseless Russian strikes on Kyiv which have damaged the British Council building.
“Putin is killing children and civilians, and sabotaging hopes of peace. This bloodshed must end.”
A spokesperson for the British Council said: “Following last night’s attack, our British Council office in Kyiv has been severely damaged and will remain closed to the public until further notice.
“Thankfully, our colleagues are all safe and our work with our Ukrainian partners in education and culture will continue uninterrupted.”
Von der Leyen has said the European Commission would soon propose a further package of “hard-biting sanctions” against Russia, the 19th since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Last week, the Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty unveiled sanctions against eight organisations and individuals to “keep the pressure on” Putin, who he claimed was exploiting “dodgy crypto networks”.
Russia in return sanctioned 21 individuals including the former MP Denis MacShane, several journalists and the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall.
