UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky said today that a Russian missile strike on a nine-storey block of flats in Kiev on Tuesday night was a sign that more pressure must be applied on Moscow to agree to a ceasefire.

The drone and missile attack was the deadliest assault on the capital this year, killing 28 people across the city and injured 142 more, Kiev Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said today.

Mr Zelensky, along with the head of the presidential office Andrii Yermak and Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, visited the site of the strike in Kiev’s Solomianskyi district this morning, laying flowers and paying tribute to the 23 people who died there after a direct hit by a missile collapsed the structure.

“This attack is a reminder to the world that Russia rejects a ceasefire and chooses killing,” he wrote on Telegram, and thanked Ukraine’s partners who he said are ready to pressure Russia to “feel the real cost of the war.”

Speaking to reporters in St Petersburg on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was open to talks with Mr Zelensky, but repeated his claim that the Ukrainian leader had lost his legitimacy after his term expired last year.

“We are ready for substantive talks on the principles of a settlement,” Mr Putin said, noting that a previous round of talks in Istanbul had led to an exchange of prisoners and the bodies of fallen soldiers.