Zürcher Nachrichten - Russian strikes kill seven in Ukraine, Zelensky vows winter campaign

The attacks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN General Assembly in New York that his forces would hit Russian heating and energy facilities this winter as he again slammed Kremlin chief President Vladimir Putin.

But Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN Security Council there would be no "pause" in the war. He accused Europe of seeking a a halt to fighting to "pump the Kyiv regime with weapons".

Russia has pummelled the Kyiv region at an intensity unseen since March 2022, weeks after it invaded Ukraine, while stepping up attacks across the rest of the country, according to an AFP analysis of figures from the ACLED conflict monitor.

Kyiv officials said that on top of the new deaths, more than 40 people were wounded in strikes on gas stations, offices, a college building, businesses and the rail network, while the internet was cut to some 100,000 households.

Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga accused Russia of putting civilian lives at risk by targeting data centres that provide information to the public on the threat from incoming missiles and drones.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the UN General Assembly that Washington was pushing for both sides to end attacks on energy targets. US President Donald Trump meanwhile invited Putin to attend the G20 summit in Miami in December.

But after Lavrov set out Russia's hardline stance, Zelensky told the General Assembly that his country would hit back.

"Putin is always looking for someone who can help him kill more, kill more people for every kilometer of land, take more territory and take another country instead of simply stopping and running his own country," Zelensky said.

- Strikes hit new peak -

"Ukrainians understand that this winter could be very harsh for us, but in response we will have no choice but to make it painful for Russia too," he said.

AFP reporters in Kyiv saw clouds of smoke across the city amid air-defence explosions, while the smell of burning filled the air as commuters headed to work.

Artem Derevyaha said he and his colleagues evacuated the canteen where they work after a strike hit their building.

"Everyone went out, and we had literally just moved two metres away when the second strike happened," he said.

"You just have time to lie down on the floor, that's all. You don't have any thoughts in your head."

In a sign of how the Kyiv region has suffered, AFP analysis of data from the ACLED armed conflict monitor showed that there were more Russian strikes in the first 18 days of September than in any full month since the start of the war apart from March 2022.

A total of 118 incidents have been recorded this month. In March 2022, as the invasion gathered pace, there were 174 in the whole month.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, at least four people were killed, including a young child, when a residential building was hit in Oleksandrivka, west of Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donbas region.

- Turkey protests -

In Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa, the captain of a cargo ship was killed in a Russian attack -- part of a wave of strikes from both sides on commercial vessels designed to hit export revenues.

The head of the Odesa region, Oleg Kiper, said the vessel was sailing under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda.

At least 226 civilian and commercial vessels have been hit on the Black Sea since the start of the conflict, Turkey's IMEAK chamber of shipping said.

Seventy percent -- or 163 attacks -- took place in the first eight months of this year, prompting Turkey to call on both sides to halt attacks on civilian ships.

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G.Kuhn--NZN