Russia admits striking Ukraine during UN Secretary-General's visit

Moscow: Russia confirmed on Friday that it carried out an airstrike on Kyiv during a visit by the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.

Russia's defence ministry said it had deployed "high-precision, long-range air-based weapons" that "destroyed the production buildings of the Artyom missile and space enterprise in Kyiv."

The attack was the first of such on the Ukrainian capital in nearly two weeks, and in which a journalist also died.

Vera Lynch, a producer for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was killed when a Russian missile hit the building where she lived in Kyiv, the media group said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes, which immediately followed his talks with UN chief Antonio Guterres, were an attempt by Russia "to humiliate the UN and everything that the organization represents".

Earlier that day, Guterres had toured Bucha and other Kyiv suburbs where Moscow is alleged to have committed war crimes. Russia denies killing civilians.

Germany said the "inhumane" attack showed Russian President Vladimir Putin has "no respect whatsoever for international law".

The powerful blast had ripped out walls and doors, leaving piles of rubble on the ground.

"I think Russians aren't afraid of anything, not even the world's judgement," Anna Hromovych, deputy director of a heavily damaged clinic, told AFP as she and others were cleaning up the devastation on Friday.

Putin is nevertheless due to attend November's G20 summit, President Joko Widodo of host nation Indonesia said. Zelensky also has been invited.

Three months into an invasion that failed in its short-term aim of capturing Kyiv, Russia is now intensifying operations in the eastern Donbas region and tightening its stranglehold on the devastated southern port city of Mariupol.

Ukrainian authorities said they planned to evacuate civilians on Friday from the besieged Azovstal steel plant, the last holdout in Mariupol where hundreds of civilians are sheltering with Ukrainian troops.

But Denis Pushilin, The leader of the breakaway eastern region of Donetsk, accused Ukrainian forces of "acting like outright terrorists".

He said Ukraine was holding civilians, hostage, in the steel plant, claiming that people were free to leave any time.