Ukraine pitches ‘regime change’ in Russia

Moscow’s forces seize key town in Donetsk

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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 16 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 atleast 150 people in the capital, authorities said.

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, Mr 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,” he said.

From late Wednesday to early Thursday, Russia fired over 300 drones and eight cruise missiles at Ukraine, with Kyiv the main target, the Ukrainian air force said.