Live: Russian missiles, drones kill residents, tear open buildings in ‘massive attack’ on Kyiv

02/07/2026 – 10:03

Kyiv’s Holodomor museum evacuates exhibits

In a dark hall of Kyiv’s Holodomor museum, four men were carefully lifting the protective glass cases off robes, icons, books and metal agricultural tools.

The items are a memory to the millions that perished in the 1932-33 manmade famine under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, which many in Ukraine and around the world call a genocide.

But with Russia stepping up its attacks on Ukrainian cultural and historic sites, the museum is just one institution fearful it could be targeted — and is now packing up and relocating its collections.

“As the experience of recent weeks has shown, Russia is deliberately striking sites connected to cultural heritage and cultural institutions,” the museum’s deputy general director, Olga Melnyk, told AFP.

Most of the pieces being relocated to “safer locations” are family heirlooms from victims of the famine, passed down through generations — often at personal risk during the Soviet era — Melnyk explained.

Ukraine says nearly 2,000 cultural heritage sites and 2,500 cultural institutions have been damaged since Russia invaded in 2022.

02/07/2026 – 09:53

EU top diplomat to propose new Russia sanctions over Kyiv strikes

EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas said she will propose new sanctions on “entities supporting Russia’s military-industrial complex” in response to Russia’s massive attack on Kyiv.

“We keep raising the cost until Russia understands it cannot win,” Kallas wrote on X, adding EU staff in Kyiv were accounted for after the deadly barrage that killed at least 13 people and wounded dozens.

02/07/2026 – 09:51

Zelensky asks US for licence to make Patriot missiles after strikes on Kyiv

President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked the United States on Thursday for licences to manufacture Patriot air defence missiles,

Air defence supplies for Ukraine are “an absolute and critical priority” said Zelensky on X. “It is especially important that we move forward with implementing our agreements on the production of anti-ballistic capabilities. We also very much count on a decision by the United States regarding licenses for Patriots and other forms of cooperation. These are the kinds of steps that can stop this war and prevent attacks like this.”

02/07/2026 – 09:29

Kyiv residents take to shelters as Russia launches ‘several waves of missiles’

Reporting from Kyiv, FRANCE 24’s Emmanuelle Chaze said residents took to “various shelters, be it basements, be it underground parking lots, and of course, underground stations, subway stations” when the first explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital early Thursday.

“There were several waves of missiles that were launched by Russia against Ukraine that you could hear even in the shelters, even underground. There’s even a ceiling of a subway station that partially collapsed following an impact over ground,” said Chaze. “Several districts have been impacted and we are talking about residential buildings,” she added.

02/07/2026 – 09:27

Russian missile and drone strikes hit Kyiv

Russian missile and drone strikes hit Kyiv early Thursday, sparking fires across the Ukrainian, killing 13 people and injuring dozens, Ukrainian officials said, after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Moscow was preparing a “massive attack”. 

02/07/2026 – 09:26

Hello and welcome to FRANCE 24’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.