Russian Missles Strike Close To UN’s Antonio Guterres’ Meeting With Zelensky

Russian missiles struck close to Kyiv where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday night.

“Today, immediately after the end of our talks in Kyiv, Russian missiles flew into the city. Five rockets. And this says a lot … about the Russian leadership’s efforts to humiliate the U.N. and everything that the organization represents,” Zelenskyy said.

Guterres was said to be “shocked” at how close the missiles had been, though it was not made clear just how close they had been to hit the building Guterres and Zelensky were in.

The attack was the most emboldened and direct attack on Kyiv since Russian forces retreated from the city in early April.

Russia announced that they had used “high-precision long-range air-based weapons” that were deployed from Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The lone victim was Vira Hyrych, a journalist for the U.S.-funded station Radio Liberty which works to broadcast the news to areas where free press is banned or not yet established.

Guterres visited with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week to discuss humanitarian efforts and the evacuation of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol where Russian troops are trapping injured Ukrainian fighters and civilians.

“I imagined my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black. I see my granddaughters running away in panic, part of the family eventually killed. So, the war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil,” Guterres told reporters after traveling to demolished suburbs at a Thursday press conference.