Russia's missile attack on Kyiv kills one, sparks fires, Ukraine says

By Pavel Polityuk, Valentyn Ogirenko and Serhiy Karazy

KYIV (Reuters) - Russia's early morning missile attack on Kyiv killed at least one civilian and sparked several fires throughout the city, Ukrainian officials said.

"Russia carried out a missile strike on Kyiv and the Kyiv region," Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

"This is how (Vladimir) wants the war to end."

U.S. President Donald Trump, who had vowed to end the conflict in Ukraine, said over the weekend that he has been in contact with Kyiv and Putin and was "making progress" in negotiations to end the war that Russia launched on Ukraine nearly three years ago.

Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that at least one person was killed as a result of the attack and emergency services were called to at least four districts of the Ukrainian capital.

The military administration said that fires broke out at several residential and non-residential buildings.

Air raid alerts were imposed only at the start of the attack at around 0227 GMT. It was not immediately clear what missiles were used, but the late launch of air raid alerts suggests they were difficult to detect by radar.

Reuters' witnesses reported hearing a series of explosions in what sounded like air defence systems in operation.

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Pavel Polityuk, Valentyn Ogirenko and Serhiy Karazy in Kyiv; writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Muralikumar Anantharaman)