Rescuers pull out cat from rubble of a collapsed Kyiv building hit by Russian drone

Rescue workers in Ukraine pulled out a cat from the rubble of a collapsed building following a drone strike in Kyiv on Monday. Kyiv's central district of Shevchenko was hit on Monday damaging several apartment blocks and setting fire to the building. One strike appeared to target the city's heating network, hitting an operations centre. Another slammed into a four-story residential building, ripping a large hole and damaging at least three apartments. The deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said the strike killed 3 people and wounded 4 others.

Ukraine’s allies vowed to supply the besieged nation with advanced air defence systems as Russian forces attacked the Kyiv region with kamikaze drones and fired missiles elsewhere at civilian targets, payback for the bombing of a strategic bridge linking Russia with annexed Crimea. Missile strikes also earlier killed at least five people and destroyed an apartment building in the southern city of Mykolaiv, while heavy artillery damaged more than 30 houses, a hospital, a kindergarten and other buildings in the town of Nikopol, across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Russia has intensified its bombardment of civilian areas in recent weeks as its military lost ground in multiple occupied regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed. Kremlin war hawks have urged Putin to escalate the bombing campaign, even more, to punish Ukraine for Saturday’s truck bomb attack on the landmark Kerch Bridge. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack.