Lives torn apart in Kyiv after Russia's heaviest bombardment for weeks

Victims pulled from the rubble as emergency services struggle to respond

The missile attack on a residential building left at least 40 people dead and over 90 others missing. Many of the victims were sleeping when the missile struck. Emergency services rushed to pull survivors from the rubble but were hampered by ongoing shelling in the city. The attack is the deadliest strike in Kyiv since the war began.

Russian attacks intensify as Ukraine's allies consider sending more weapons

Russian forces launched their most intense series of attacks on Kyiv since the spring as NATO leaders met on Thursday to discuss sending more weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia was waging "total war" on his country and warned that the attacks could be a prelude to a full-scale invasion. Zelenskyy said that Russia aimed "to destroy the Ukrainian state, to seize our territories and create a global crisis".

The grim task of digging out bodies from flattened homes

In the Kyiv attack, emergency services used shovels and their bare hands to dig out survivors and the dead from the debris of the building which had been reduced to a pile of rubble. They worked steadily despite the threat of renewed shelling. One survivor, Bogdan, said: "I didn't even manage to wake my wife up. She was killed instantly. The ceiling just fell on top of me".