Kyiv Death Toll Rises to 28 After Massive Russian Attack on Friday

Five more bodies have been found by rescuers searching the rubble of buildings in Kyiv hit in Friday’s massive Russian attack against Ukraine, taking the death toll in the capital to 28.

“Unfortunately, the bodies of those killed in the missile strike are still being found. Rescuers pulled another body out from under the rubble."

"At this moment, the rashists have already killed 28 people in a missile strike on Dec. 29,” the city military administration said in a post on Telegram on Monday morning.

This marks the largest number of civilian casualties as a result of a single attack in Kyiv since the beginning of a full-scale invasion.

On Monday, Jan. 1, a day of mourning was declared in Kyiv following the massive attack Russia conducted on Friday, Dec. 29.

The Russian missile strikes on several cities, including the capital, killed at least 49 people in total across the country.

Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and blocks of flats were among the buildings hit in Friday's barrage, one of the most violent attacks since the start of the war.

On Saturday, at least 24 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Belgorod, a Russian city just 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the border that has been repeatedly struck by what Moscow says was indiscriminate Ukrainian shelling.

Moscow said Saturday's attack included the use of controversial cluster munitions, and told an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council that Kyiv had targeted a sports centre, an ice rink and a university.

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Russian envoy Vasily Nebenzya called it a “deliberate, indiscriminate attack against a civilian target,” AFP reports.

Ukraine's allies countered that responsibility ultimately lay with Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading the neighbouring country two years ago.

Russia launched fresh strikes against Ukraine at dawn on Sunday, a day after vowing to retaliate for the attack Belgorod.

Several Iranian-made Shahed drones targeted Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv overnight, according to local authorities, as the two sides have taken turns accusing each other of pummelling civilian areas of their shared frontier over the weekend.

“As a result of the night attack of Russian drones on Kharkiv, buildings in the city centre were damaged. These are not military facilities, but cafes, residential buildings and offices,” the city's mayor, Ihor Terekhov, wrote on Telegram, without mentioning casualties.

“On the eve of the New Year, Russians want to intimidate our city, but we are not scared.”