Russian attack on Ukrainian capital Kyiv kills at least 20 people
Valentyn Ogirenko, Gleb Garanich And Olena Harmash
Updated ,first published
Kyiv: Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kiev, killing at least 20 people and wounding many more, as drones and missiles hit residential buildings in what Russia said was retaliation for recent attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Throughout the night, multiple explosions shook buildings and echoed across the city as thousands of residents rushed into shelters and underground metro stations. It was Russia’s second-deadliest attack on Kiev so far this year.
“Tonight Russia once again carried out a cynical, large-scale attack on Ukraine,” Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on the Telegram app. “The enemy launched dozens of ballistic missiles. Kyiv was hit the hardest.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cut short his visit to Dublin on Wednesday night (Kiev time) and warned Ukrainians about an impending strike.
“As of now, 20 people are known to have died,” Timur Tkachenko, head of Kiev’s military administration, said in a Telegram post on Thursday.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that a day of mourning was declared in the city on Friday. Earlier, Klitschko said that at least 86 people were injured and 70 people were hospitalized in the attacks that damaged residential areas in seven districts of the city.
Video footage showed emergency services working on the rubble of a former nine-storey building as the sun rose over Kiev and fires flared in the city.
Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, said three dozen places across the city were damaged in the attacks.
“The enemy once again deliberately targeted settlements and killed civilians. We suffered extensive damage and a significant number of casualties, including children,” he wrote on Telegram.
In an earlier post, Klitschko said the injured included paramedics and drivers at the ambulance station, and that some people were still trapped in damaged residential buildings.
In pictures published on the Internet, it was seen that the fire broke out on top of a building on the central Shevchenko Boulevard and went out of control, while windows were blown out and vehicles were destroyed in other parts of the city.
An eyewitness said multiple explosions were heard in Kiev, and officials in the region surrounding the capital separately said on Telegram that there were injuries there as well.
People flocked to metro stations carrying children, belongings, tents and pets as much of Ukrainian territory was put on air raid alert overnight in Russia’s worst attack on Ukraine since mid-June.
“Do not delay air defense decisions for Ukraine! This is our main request from our partners after Kiev had a night of horrors,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X while visiting Ukraine’s ally Japan on Thursday (Kiev time).
Neighboring Poland, a member of NATO and the European Union, briefly took off the warplanes as a preventive measure, then recalled them and said no airspace violations were recorded. Finland also declared a temporary aviation restriction zone in the east of the Gulf of Finland, which it later lifted, the defense forces said in X.
The “massive attack” using long-range, high-precision air-, ground- and sea-launched weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles hit military and energy facilities as well as airports in Kiev and other regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a Telegram post.
The ministry said this was in retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure, without elaborating. The ministry said Russia shot down 327 unmanned aerial vehicles overnight. This number also includes drones shot down in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s recent intensification of attacks on Russian territory has triggered a widespread fuel crisis in the world’s third-largest oil producer, forcing it to import gasoline from as far away as India.
Andrey Travnikov, governor of the remote Russian region of Novosibirsk, said on Telegram that the fuel crisis was worsening in the region 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow and that priority in refueling would be given to emergency services.
Governor Gleb Nikitin said that 1 person died, 4 people were injured and an industrial facility was damaged in the drone attack in the Nizhny Novgorod region in Russia. The region is home to the NORSI oil refinery, one of the largest in Russia.
Alexander Drozdenko, Governor of Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region, home to Putin and home to major export and oil refining facilities, said on Telegram that Russian forces shot down seven drones on Thursday.
According to the statement made separately by local authorities on Telegram, a man died and his wife was injured when a drone crashed into their house in Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine.
Reuters could not independently verify details of the casualties. Russia and Ukraine say they did not deliberately target civilians.
