June 27 2022 | Ukrainian rescuers work on top of a residential building damaged after Russian airstrikes in the Shevchenkivskiy district of Kyiv, Ukraine. Video / AP
Russian missiles hit an apartment block in central Kyiv for the first time since April on Sunday, hours after Vladimir Putin's motorcade was seen speeding into the Kremlin late on Saturday night.
Ukrainian rescue services pulled a 7-year-old girl from the partly-destroyed building. Her father was reported to have been killed and her mother injured.
Residents were woken at dawn as four rockets hit the Artem industrial complex and an adjacent block of flats. A video posted on Twitter showed smoke billowing over the capital.
"I heard four explosions, the first not too loud, the last three very loud, rattling the windows," said Oleg Bobkov, a 38-year-old construction worker who was in a nearby apartment block. "I fled down to the basement."
A resident identified only as Bohdan, injured from explosions, talks on his phone at the scene of a damaged residential building in Kyiv. Photo / Sasha Stashevskyi, AP
The wail of missile sirens has become background noise in Kyiv over the past couple of months, with life returning to a semblance of normality after Russia shifted its focus to the eastern Donbas region hundreds of miles away.
Despite the damage to numerous apartment blocks and daily funerals for killed soldiers, thousands of people who fled the initial Russian invasion have returned to the capital.
Touring the site of the missile strike on Sunday, Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv's mayor, accused Vladimir Putin of committing genocide.
"Vladimir Putin finds any reason to attack Kyiv," he said. "Why does he want to kill civilians? It is genocide."
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko speaks at the scene of a residential building following explosions, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo / Nariman El-Mofty, AP
Video footage from Moscow, reportedly shot at 11pm on Saturday, showed Putin's motorcade of six black cars speeding through empty Moscow streets and into the Kremlin. The reason for the late-night trip was unclear.
Earlier that day, he had met key ally Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president, and promised to send him missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Some analysts suggested Sunday's missile attack on Kyiv may have been in retaliation for the delivery of high-precision rockets to Ukraine from the West, which reportedly arrived a few days ago.
Motorcade rushing to the Kremlin at 23:00 local time in Moscow. (About 1 hour ago) pic.twitter.com/0qHe3uCRw4
Russian missiles also hit targets north of Kyiv on Saturday, and there were reports of further strikes on Sunday. Russia's defence ministry said it had hit Ukrainian military training centres.
The Artem factory, a sprawling office block and machine plant, was built in Soviet times and has manufactured missiles.
However, locals said the building now serves mainly as the company's corporate headquarters, and that it diversified into civilian electronics manufacturing long ago.
A couple embrace as they look at smoke billowing from residential buildings following explosions in Kyiv. Photo / Nariman El-Mofty, AP
When the complex was last hit in late April, the attack appeared to be timed to coincide with a visit to Kyiv by Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general.
