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.
Ukraine said Russia launched 805 drones and decoys and 13 missiles overnight into Sunday. It was the largest such attack since the full-scale invasion. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, confirmed to The Associated Press news agency.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko was initially quoted by the 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 buildings in the city’s west and east.
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s city administration, later confirmed the body of a one-year-old child was dug out of the rubble by rescuers.
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.
Drone debris also caused fires atop a 16-storey and two nine-storey buildings in the Sviatoshynskyi district in Kyiv’s west, he said.
Witnesses told Reuters they heard a series of explosions shaking the city, which sounded like air defence units in operation.
The attacks, which also knocked out power in the city, left smoke rising from the roof of Ukraine’s cabinet, housing the offices of its ministers.
Credit: aljazeera.com
