The China Mail - Russian strikes kill 22 in Kyiv region on eve of NATO summit

The attack hit just days after another Russian strike killed more than 30 people in the Ukrainian capital.

President Volodymyr Zelensky -- expected to hold talks with US counterpart Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Turkey -- urged the Atlantic alliance to take "strong decisions" on boosting Ukraine's air defences, with the European Union also saying Kyiv needed reinforcements.

As rescuers pulled bodies from the rubble in Kyiv, NATO chief Mark Rutte said in the Turkish capital, Ankara: "Allies and NATO partners must continue to ensure Ukraine gets what it needs."

The morning strike punched a crater into a multi-storey apartment block in Kyiv's Podilsky district, ripping its floors in two.

AFP reporters heard more than 10 explosions during a ballistic missile alert at night, with flashes in the sky as the blasts rang out.

Fifteen people were killed in the capital, and another seven in Vyshneve, a town just outside Kyiv, authorities said.

Ukraine's interior ministry said almost 90 people had been wounded in the strikes.

It was the second attack in a week in which Russia deployed hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles -- prompting Zelensky to make a fresh appeal for allies to send missiles for US-made Patriot air defence systems.

"Our warriors performed well today in intercepting drones and cruise missiles, but unfortunately not Russian ballistic missiles," Zelensky said.

"And the reason lies in the insufficient supply of interceptor missiles," he added.

He called for Kyiv's American and European allies to commit to strengthening Ukraine's air defences at the Ankara summit, which begins Tuesday.

Russia fired 68 missiles and 351 attack drones, Zelensky said.

- 'Need to pray' -

Emergency employees worked through destroyed apartments and carried out bodies on white sheets.

A woman screamed as rescuers pulled a body from the eighth floor of a building.

"I felt the need to pray," Oleksandr Kolomiyets, 60, told AFP outside the destroyed building in the Podilsky district.

Anna Misko, a 36-year-old who recently returned to Ukraine, said she and her child had survived by a "miracle" as they went down to the ground floor of the building.

Russia "wants to destroy us", she said, adding that "there is no place" that is safe in Ukraine.

"We did not expect this, as there was an attack literally five days ago," she said.

Russia's defence ministry said the "massive strike" had targeted what it described as "military-industrial enterprises", fuel and energy facilities in several Ukrainian regions.

Kyiv resident Oleksandr Seleznyov said the war had reached a "new phase".

"It's difficult to know what to expect... I think the Russians want to make Kyiv uninhabitable for civilians."

Around 30 residential buildings in Kyiv were hit, officials said.

Another woman was also killed by Russian drones in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, officials said.

- Kyiv hits Siberian refinery -

While Kyiv reeled from the attack, the Ukrainian army said it had struck an oil refinery in Russia's Omsk region, around 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) from Ukraine's border, in one of its deepest hits during the almost four-and-a-half-year war.

Ukraine has struck targets far inside Russia in recent months, triggering national fuel shortages.

Ukraine's general staff said the Omsk refinery was "involved in supplying the Russian occupation army".

The governor of Omsk, which borders Kazakhstan, confirmed the refinery had been hit by drones, saying there were no casualties.

It is unclear how the drones were able to travel that far.

Moscow's army said its forces had shot down more than 500 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the state-backed Max messaging service that waves of the drones had been bound for the Russian capital.

US-led attempts to broker an end to the war have gone nowhere.

The White House said Trump would meet Zelensky Wednesday during the NATO summit in a bid to invigorate diplomacy.

"The president's obviously getting together with him to talk about how we can end the war. That's been a priority of his for a long time," a senior US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said Trump would "follow up" with Russia's Vladimir Putin, who has refused to back down on his hardline demands.

D.Wang--ThChM