Macron pledges air defence as 13 killed in Russia, Ukraine strikes / Photo: © AFP
Macron pledges air defence as 13 killed in Russia, Ukraine strikes
France on Saturday promised to deliver new interceptor missiles to Ukraine amid a surge in Russian strikes that have pushed civilian deaths in the four-and-a-half-year war to their highest since the first months of Moscow's invasion.
At least 13 people were killed in strikes overnight and through Saturday -- seven in Ukraine, four in Russia and two in Russia-annexed Crimea.
The latest deadly attacks come as rescuers in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig were sifting through the rubble of a part-destroyed shopping centre, where 16 were killed a day earlier in a Russian drone attack.
Ukraine's allies in the Coalition of the Willing -- an initiative led by France and Britain -- will meet on Monday to look at how to ramp up pressure on Moscow to halt its invasion.
Diplomacy has stalled with the United States, which had brokered several rounds of direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow, but which is now distracted by its war on Iran and frustrated the conflict has not been as easy to solve as President Donald Trump once touted.
Announcing the new missile interceptors, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X: "It is crucial to provide Ukraine with all the necessary means to defend its skies and thwart this aggression."
Russia has pounded Ukraine -- the capital Kyiv especially -- with ballistic missile attacks in recent months.
The hard-to-intercept super-fast weapons reach their target within minutes, making it virtually impossible for locals in Kyiv to reach an underground shelter in time.
Among the deadly attacks on Saturday was a Ukrainian drone strike on a house in southern Russia, killing two children and wounding their parents, the head of the Krasnodar region said.
"This morning, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings in the Yeysk district came under a drone attack," Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said.
"As a result of yet another vile and cynical strike ... two children were killed, and two adults are in the hospital," he added.
Russia fired a ballistic missile towards Kyiv in the middle of the day -- while the German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul was visiting for talks with his Ukrainian counterpart and President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Two were killed and several wounded in the Boryspil district, on the eastern outskirts of the city.
At least four were killed in a series of strikes on the frontline region of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials said.
- 'Cynical' mall strike -
Ukraine has for weeks faced a critical shortage of advanced missile interceptors -- chief among them, US-made Patriots.
Kyiv's own weapons are not able to shoot down the high-arching ballistic missiles that Russia has been firing in their dozens.
In Zelensky's home city of Kryvyi Rig, three people were still missing after Russian drones smashed into a busy shopping centre on Friday afternoon, the regional governor said.
Sixteen people have been confirmed killed and more than 100 wounded.
The strike set the mall ablaze and sent blood-covered victims running for the streets, only for a second drone to fly in around half an hour later -- a double-tap attack blasted by Zelensky as "cynical and despicable".
Mourners placed flowers and letters on the grass outside the mall in a makeshift memorial on Saturday.
An AFP reporter saw machinery piling up twisted and charred metal.
Supermarket shelves stacked with products blackened from the fire were stacked up beneath a cratered ceiling and behind blown-out windows.
The strikes marked the latest escalation in the four-and-a-half-year conflict.
The United Nations reported that the civilian death toll so far this year had risen to its highest level since the first months of the war.
(P.Tomczyk--DTZ)
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