KYIV: Russian strikes crashed into Kyiv in the middle of Thursday when Antonio Guterres visited, shocked the United Nations head and injured 10, in the first rocket attack on the capital since mid -April.
A hard explosion shook the capital of Ukraine around 1715 GMT, sending an emergency vehicle that scrambled to the residential area in the western part of the attack that shook the United Nations head and his team.
Emergency service said one attack hit the 25 -storey housing block, some destroyed two floors, while the AFP correspondent also saw a low -rise building on fire, with black smoke flowing into the air and savior at the scene.
Twelve fire trucks were called to issue flames, with a savior confirmed 10 people injured in the attack, raising the previous three.
Mayor Kyiv Vitali Klitschko said there were “two hit in the Shevchenkovsky District”, one of which crashed into the “lower floor of a residential building”.
The UN team was shaken by the attack but a spokesman confirmed everything “Safe”.
“This is a war zone but surprisingly that it happened close to us,” Saviano Abreu, a spokesman for the UN Humanitarian Office told AFP, without saying how close they were to the impact.
The attack occurred less than one hour after Guterres and Volodymyr Zelensky held a joint press conference about 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) from the point of impact.
“Today, immediately after the end of our conversation at Kyiv, Russian missiles flew to the city. Five rockets,” Zelensky said.
“This says a lot … about Russian leadership efforts to embarrass the United Nations and everything he represents.”
He added that it requires a “appropriate strong reaction”.
‘Vicious barbarism actions’
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba denounced it as “a vicious barbaricism” while the Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov said it was “an attack on the security of the Secretary General and World Security”.
The strike came only two days after Guterres held talks in Moscow with Vladimir Putin, Russian leader told him that he still hoped that negotiations could end the conflict.
The irony was not lost at Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior aide Zelensky.
“Missile attacks in the center of Kyiv City during the official visit of @antonioguter. The day before he sat at a long table in Kremlin, and today the explosion was on his head,” he tweeted.
Previously, on his first visit to Ukraine since Russia launched a full scale invasion on February 24, Guterres had a tour to several cities and villages near Kyiv where Russian troops were accused of killing civilians.
“War is an absurdity in the 21st century. War is evil,” he said after visiting places including Bucha where dozens of corpses in civilian dressed, some with bound hands and others were buried in shallow graves.
Then at a press conference with Zelensky, Guterres admitted that the Security Council had failed far enough in his efforts to “prevent and end” the Russian War in Ukraine.
“Let me be clearer: The Security Council fails to do all power to prevent and end this war. And this is a source of great disappointment, frustration and anger,” he said.