Russia has carried out a mass missile and drone attack on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 100 others, officials say.
A drone smashed into an apartment block, destroying dozens of flats and Ukraine’s interior minister said the country had been hit by 440 drones and 32 missiles.
Officials said initially that 15 people had died in the capital, but later revised the number down to 10, with another two fatalities in the southern port city of Odesa.
The attack overnight into Tuesday was among the biggest on the capital since the start of Russia’s full-scale war and President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was “one of the most terrifying strikes”.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had targeted Ukraine’s military-industrial complexes and that all its targets had been hit.
The strikes on Kyiv lasted more than nine hours – sending residents fleeing to underground shelters from before midnight until after sunrise. Officials said a ballistic missile hit a nine-storey apartment building in one district, with a total of 27 locations in the city coming under fire. An entrance to the building in the southwestern Solomyanskyi district came crashing down and there were concerns the number of casualties could rise.
A 62-year-old US citizen was among those killed, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Standing in front of the remains of the building, Klitschko said more than 40 apartments had been destroyed and more people might be trapped under the rubble.
He accused Russia of firing cluster bomblets filled with ball bearings to kill as many people as possible.
Credit: bbc.com
