The death toll from Russia’s heavy bombardment of Ukraine’s capital this week has risen to 31 people, marking the deadliest single attack on Kyiv in a year, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.

Ukrainian rescuers recovered more than a dozen more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed apartment block in Kyiv overnight, bringing the death toll from Russia's worst air strike of the year on Ukraine's capital to 31.

The residential building in the Sviatoshynskyi district was a “direct hit,” Tymur Tkachenko said in a message on Telegram.