Ukraine blames Russia for deadly strike on Turkish cargo ship

KYIV:

Ukraine said Sunday that Russian missile strikes on a Turkish-owned cargo ship carrying grain had killed six people, hours after Moscow fired a fresh barrage of missiles at Kyiv.

Ukraine's navy said Russia had launched three cruise missiles at the Golden Leo, which flies the flag of Guinea-Bissau, as it was "leaving the combat zone with a cargo of grain".

Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said the crew had included citizens of Syria and India, while Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said the vessel was struck near Odesa after leaving port.

"Eight crew members were rescued. Two of them were injured. Unfortunately, as of now, six sailors are confirmed dead, and four more are missing," Kyiv's transport minister Mykola Kalashnyk said on Telegram.

Sybiga confirmed a Ukrainian maritime pilot had been killed in the attack in a statement on X.

"While the world is still responding to Russia's brutal overnight attack on Kyiv, Moscow continues its campaign of terror throughout the day," he added.

Overnight, Russia had fired two dozen ballistic missiles at Kyiv, killing one person and wounding 16, in an ever-escalating air war that is taking an increasing civilian toll on both sides.

On the Russian side, a Ukrainian strike killed one person in the Kursk region, near the Ukrainian border, regional governor Alexander Khinshtein said on Telegram.

- Dozens of missiles -

AFP journalists in Kyiv saw charred apartment blocks with windows blown out and mangled, overturned cars.

"The missiles just kept coming one after another, the explosions were powerful, it was horrible," 47-year-old Kyiv resident Ganna Zagorodnia told AFP.

"I thought that life was just about to end."

In a statement on social media, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian attack had been "one of its largest ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv," launching more than 40 missiles, 25 of them ballistic.

One person had been killed and 16 others wounded, he added.

Seven other people were killed in Russian strikes on Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk in the east and Odesa in the south, local officials said.

Russia, which denies targeting civilians, said it struck military facilities and logistics hubs in Kyiv and port infrastructure used by the Ukrainian army in Odesa.

Ukraine, now in its fifth year of war, faces intensifying Russian missile attacks.

In recent days, it has also had to contend with rare domestic political instability triggered by a sudden wartime shakeup of its defence leadership.

Thousands have gathered in big cities across Ukraine over the last three days to protest the removal of defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Demonstrators also called for the resignation of Ukraine's chief commander Oleksandr Syrsky, who reportedly had demanded Fedorov's dismissal after the two clashed over how to counter the Russian invasion.