Ukraine war: ‘I want Putin to die’ – Shock and anger after dozens of Russian missiles hit Kyiv
I met Larysa standing on broken glass outside her Kyiv apartment block trying to convince two council workmen to come up to her flat and mend her shattered windows.
Only hours earlier she had been shaken to the core by a huge explosion in the residential complex car park three floors beneath her.
She invited us inside saying she had been terrified by the blast.
Larysa was clearly in shock and very teary.
Hypersonic missiles fired by Russia in hours of strikes – war latest
Larysa had been shaken by a huge blast
As we walked towards the entrance to her block I looked up; dozens and dozens of windows were shattered for floor after floor of the building.
Inside, the workmen started clearing up while we chatted.
“There was an explosion, and of course, I jumped immediately,” she told me.
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Several killed as Russian strikes hit Kyiv
“I just looked outside and saw people running, so I ran through my apartment and checked all my windows… and then I saw the ambulance and fire engines arrive 15 minutes later.”
She kept telling me how she worries about her grandchildren, so I asked her if she could try to explain to another grandmother in the UK what it’s like living through this war.
“Oh, don’t even ask, most of all I worry about my children and grandchildren, one of my sons is on the frontline, the oldest one. I don’t worry about myself, I have thick skin, so I am okay, but my children…”
A missile struck a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv’s Svyatoshyns’kyi district
‘Let them be cursed!’
Larysa grew increasingly upset as we spoke – and she is particularly upset with Russia, its people, and President Putin.
“May they be cursed! I hope they can hear me, even friends I have known there my whole life… let them be cursed!
“I don’t worry about myself, I’m old, but I worry about my children and grandchildren,” she reiterated.
“I want an end to this as soon as possible, I want Putin to die…”
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Residents walk past the destruction
Shrapnel scars children’s playground
In the car park below, police searched for fragments of missile that hit this residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, in Svyatoshyns’kyi district. They were trying to figure out exactly what it was.
The Russians fired a whole range of weapons across the country, shattering the morning peace with devastating effect.
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Deadly strikes hit Kyiv and Lviv regions
Cars here caught fire as the missile crashed into the ground, and dozens upon dozens of apartment windows were shattered in the blast.
The children’s playground wasn’t spared either – we saw shrapnel marks on the swings and slides.
A few men were surveying their damaged vehicles, seeing what they could repair.
“As you see, we just try to fix the problem and continue to live and hope for the best… all the wars in history come to an end, so I hope it will be fast and peace will come soon,” one of them told me.
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Strikes and sirens are part of life in Kyiv
Council workers began delivering large rolls of plastic sheeting for people to repair their windows as best as possible.
It is relatively mild here in Ukraine at the moment, but the temperatures can plunge in a matter of hours.
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How significant were missile strikes?
This was a massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and one of the targets was a power station in Kyiv, which burnt through the morning.
By the time we got to it, the fire was out, but there have been power cuts caused by the attack.
Firefighters extinguish a blaze after a missile strike in Kyiv
People take shelter in a metro station during an alarm
Air raid sirens periodically sounded throughout the day here in the capital, and after three weeks of relative quiet, we watched as some residents once again returned to the metro to await the all-clear.
This surprised me; that even after all this time people still run for shelter when the sirens ring out.
It’s part of life here now.
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
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Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
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Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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