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Teenage girl killed as Russian drone strikes Kyiv apartment block

Five other people were also reportedly killed in an attack in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Firefighters wear oxygen masks before entering a floor that burned down after a Russian attack killed a teenager in Kyiv (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
Firefighters wear oxygen masks before entering a floor that burned down after a Russian attack killed a teenager in Kyiv (AP Photo/Alex Babenko) (Alex Babenko/AP)

A Russian drone strike killed a teenager in Kyiv during a night-time barrage on the Ukrainian capital that lasted for hours, local officials said.

Elsewhere, five people were reportedly killed in a missile attack on central Ukraine that also left at least 21 injured.

According to Kyiv’s mayor, Vitalii Klitschko, the drone slammed into a 25-storey apartment block on Friday night in the city’s west, killing a 15-year-old girl and injuring five others.

Ukraine’s emergency service said 100 people were evacuated following the strike, which damaged several apartments on the building’s upper floors.

Firefighters rest on a curb during after responding to a Russian drone attack (Alex BabenkoAP)
Firefighters rest on a curb during after responding to a Russian drone attack (Alex BabenkoAP) (Alex Babenko/AP)

Serhii Popko, who heads Kyiv’s local military administration, said on Saturday that Russian forces overnight pummelled the city for seven and a half hours.

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Air raid sirens wailed throughout the night, and Mr Popko said that Ukrainian air defences shot down “up to a dozen” Russian drones.

Also late on Friday, a Russian missile hit a residential area in the central city of Dnipro, killing a 14-year-old and four others, said regional governor Serhii Lysak, adding that at least 21 others were injured including an eight-year-old and teenagers.

The wife and teenage daughter of a local policeman were pulled dead from the rubble, police reported.

The attack damaged more than a dozen apartment buildings, private houses and a medical facility.

A man and woman died after a Russian drone dropped explosives on a village in the southern Kherson region, local prosecutors said, while two people in their 60s were killed by shelling in the Kharkiv province in the north east.

Later on Saturday, Russian artillery shelling killed two civilian men elsewhere in the Kherson region, local governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

In the Kyiv province, which surrounds but does not include the capital, flying debris from a drone attack killed a woman, Ukraine’s Emergency Service reported.

A residential building burns after an attack of Russian drones killed a teenager in Kyiv, Ukraine (Alex Babenko/AP)
A residential building burns after an attack of Russian drones killed a teenager in Kyiv, Ukraine (Alex Babenko/AP) (Alex Babenko/AP)

A 13-year-old boy was wounded elsewhere in the region, it said.

Russian forces overnight launched a total of 91 drones and seven missiles at Ukrainian territory, Ukraine’s air force said on Saturday in the latest of its regular media updates.

It said 44 of the drones were shot down.

In Russia, air defence brought down 17 Ukrainian drones over four regions near the border, the Defence Ministry in Moscow reported on Saturday.

Also according to the Russian Defence Ministry, Moscow’s troops have continued eking out battlefield gains in Ukraine’s industrial east, capturing the hamlet of Oleksandropil in the Donetsk region.

Russia has been conducting a ferocious months-long campaign along the eastern front in Ukraine, gradually compelling Kyiv to surrender ground.

But Russia has struggled to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk border region following an incursion almost three months ago.