Zelensky urges allies to push for 'regime change' in Russia

KYIV - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged his allies to bring about "regime change" in Russia, hours after a Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv killed seven people including a six-year-old boy.

The overnight strikes reduced part of a nine-storey apartment block in Kyiv's western suburbs to rubble and wounded dozens of others, according to authorities.

The Russian army meanwhile claimed to have captured Chasiv Yar, a strategically important hillside town in eastern Ukraine where the two sides have been fiercely fighting for months.

Moscow has stepped up its deadly aerial assaults on Ukraine in recent months, resisting US pressure to end its nearly three-and-a-half-year invasion as its forces grind forward on the battlefield.

Speaking virtually to a conference marking 50 years since the signing of the Cold War-era Helsinki Accords, Zelensky said he believed Russia could be "pushed" to stop the war.

"But if the world doesn't aim to change the regime in Russia, that means even after the war ends, Moscow will still try to destabilise neighbouring countries," the Ukrainian leader added.

Between late Wednesday and early Thursday, Russia fired over 300 drones and eight cruise missiles at Ukraine, the main target of which was Kyiv, the Ukrainian air force said.

One missile tore through a nine-storey residential building in western Kyiv, tearing off its facade, authorities said.

AFP journalists at the scene of the strike saw rescuers scouring through a smouldering mound of broken concrete, the belongings of residents scattered among the debris.

"Seven lives of Kyiv residents were taken by the Russians in their night attack," Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city's military administration, said in a post on Telegram.

Among them was a six-year-old boy, who died in an ambulance, Tkachenko said in an earlier post.

Russia's attack came just days after US President Donald Trump issued a 10-day ultimatum for Moscow to halt its invasion, now in its fourth year, or face sanctions.

KEY CAPTURE IN EAST

Russia said on Thursday it had captured the town of Chasiv Yar, which had been a strategically important military hub for Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.

The town "was liberated by Russian forces", Russia's defence ministry said in a statement.

A Ukrainian army spokesperson rejected Russia's claim as "lies".

"Of course, this is not true," Viktor Tregubov, a spokesperson for the Khortytsia Operational Strategic Group of Forces, told AFP.

Control of Chasiv Yar would mark a major military boon for Russia, which has been making incremental but steady territorial gains for months.

Home to around 12,000 people before the war but now largely destroyed, the town's capture would pave the way for Russian forces to advance on remaining civilian strongholds in the eastern Donetsk region.

These include the garrison city of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, important logistical bases for the Ukrainian military and home to many civilians, who have up to now not fled the fighting.

The Kremlin has made the capture of the Donetsk region a priority since it claimed the industrial region as part of Russia in September 2022.

Following Thursday's strikes, Ukrainian officials called for more pressure on Russia to end the war.

"President Trump has been very generous and very patient with Putin, trying to find a solution", Ukraine's foreign minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on X.

"It's time to make him feel the pain and consequences of his choices. It's time to put maximum pressure on Moscow", he said.

Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has not yet commented on the strike or Zelensky's call for regime change.

Putin has himself called for Zelensky to be removed from office and has repeatedly questioned his legitimacy.