At least three people have been killed, 18 wounded, and dozens of buildings set on fire in Kyiv, including the seat of the government, following a Russian drone and missile attack in Ukraine‘s capital, according to officials and local news reports.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko was initially quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that the attack early on Sunday killed an infant and a young woman, and sparked fires at several high-rise apartment buildings in the city’s west and east.
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Medics were called to the leafy Darnytskyi district to the east of the Dnipro River, where a four-storey apartment building caught fire from the debris of drones destroyed in the overnight attack, Klitschko added.
The Ukrainian news website Kyiv Independent also reported that an elderly woman also died in a shelter in the city’s Darnytskyi district following the attack, although the cause of of her death was not immediately clear.
The State Emergency Service confirmed at least one fatality in Kyiv and at least 18 injured.
Reuters agency also quoted witnesses and the Ukrainian military as saying that a fire has broken out at an administrative building in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district following the drone attack, which also knocked out power in the city.
Russian attacks on Ukraine have increased in recent days even as US President Donald Trump stepped up diplomacy to end the three-and-a-half-year war, although those efforts have not yet been successful.
Earlier, Klitschko posted on the Telegram messaging app that a pregnant woman and two other injured people had been hospitalised.
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Drone debris also caused fires atop a 16-storey and two nine-storey buildings in the Sviatoshynskyi district in Kyiv’s west, he said.
Reuters witnesses heard a series of explosions shaking the city in what sounded like air defence units in operation.
Timur Tkachenko, the head of the military administration of the capital, said on Telegram that Russia was “deliberately and consciously striking civilian targets.”
Moscow did not immediately issue any comment on the attacks.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the strikes, but thousands have died in the war Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Early on Sunday, most of Ukraine was under air raid alerts after Ukrainian Air Force warnings of Russian missile and drone attacks.
Tens of explosions shook the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, cutting power to parts of it, Mayor Vitalii Maletskyi said on Telegram.
Russian strikes on Kryvyi Rih in the same region targeted transport and urban infrastructure, Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the military administration, said on Telegram, but with no injuries reported.
In the southern city of Odesa, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings were damaged, with fires breaking out in several apartment blocks, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
Earlier, a separate Russian strike in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region killed one person and wounded several others, according to regional military governor Oleg Grygorov on Telegram.
A Russian drone attack on Saturday evening in Zaporizhzhia in the southeast also wounded at least 15 people, four of whom were hospitalised, said Ivan Fedorov, the head of the military administration in the region, which is partially occupied by Russia.
Meanwhile, the Russian air defence units reported that it destroyed at least 69 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to the RIA state news agency.
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