Rescue services in the Darnytskyi district of south-east Kyiv completed their search of the rubble of a devastated nine-storey apartment block on Friday. Throughout the 28-hour operation residents and soldiers looked on, waiting for news of missing relatives.
Kyiv was marking a day of mourning on Friday for the 24 victims of the strike.
The Nova Poshta postal service said two of its staff, both named Dmytro, had been killed in the attack, one of them alongside his wife. Former hockey player Yuriy Orlov and his 24-year-old girlfriend Maryna Homeniuk, an English teacher, were among the victims. A kindergarten teacher, Svitlana Moskalishyna, was also killed.
The three girls who died were 12, 15 and 15.
Lyubava Yakovleva’s elder sister was initially declared missing in the rubble, and it was later reported that she too had been killed. The girls’ school said on Facebook that the “scariest face of war is the children’s lives it takes”.
Among those bringing flowers to the scene was Volodymyr Zelensky, who said pressure had to be brought to bear on a Russia that “deliberately destroys lives and hopes to remain unpunished”.
The Ukrainian leader said the building had been practically levelled to the ground by a Russian X-101 cruise missile.
Most of the 18 flats destroyed in Thursday’s strike were single-room apartments, or the bathrooms and kitchens of two-room apartments. An entrance to the building was reduced to rubble.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko praised rescuers for saving the lives of 30 people.
One of the first people to reach the scene of the strike, 18-year-old Ivan, rushed to the block with his father to help rescue the victims.
“A fire was burning, and there was smoke everywhere,” the teenager told public broadcaster Suspilne. “I helped a policeman lower a disabled woman [to safety] she couldn’t walk and the policeman carried her in his arms.”
Zelensky said the Russian missile had been produced in recent weeks. “This means that Russia is still importing the components needed for missile production, as well as the necessary resources and equipment, in circumvention of global sanctions,” he posted on social media.
President Zelensky laid flowers at the site of Thursday’s attack in Kyiv
