Russian drones and missiles that struck Kyiv and its environs overnight caused the deaths of at least 10 people, including a child, and fires in residential areas, as well as damage to the entrance to a shelter at a metro station, Ukrainian officials said today.
Rescue crews pulled bodies from the rubble of an apartment building in Kyiv’s busy Shevchenkivsky district, less than a kilometer from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. At least nine people were killed in that district, the Interior Ministry said.
Valeri Mancuta, 33, described climbing out of his third-floor window to escape after his building was hit by a rocket, authorities said. Reuters photos showed several explosions over apartment buildings in the area.
“There were bricks on me, there was something in my mouth. It was absolute hell. I woke up in the debris,” said Mancuta, a construction worker.
At least 34 people, including four children, were wounded in the Kiev attacks, the emergency service said.
From midnight until nearly dawn, the city shook with explosions and machine gun fire from anti-aircraft units targeting drones.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 339 of 352 drones and 15 of 16 missiles fired by Russia in its attack on four Ukrainian regions.
In a separate missile attack in Ukraine’s Black Sea region of Odessa around noon Monday, at least two people were killed and 12 wounded, local governor Oleh Kiper said. Moscow has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks as talks to end the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, have yielded few results. Today’s strikes come a day before NATO’s annual summit in The Hague, while President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Britain to discuss defence issues.
Russia has not commented on the latest attacks.
Police station and subway station entrance serving as a shelter
Firefighters battled to extinguish a fire that broke out in the swimming pool of the National Technical University, also known as the Kyiv Polytechnic University, Reuters photos show. The sprawling campus has a department dealing with aerospace technology. Several academic buildings and four dormitories were also affected, the polytechnic said in a statement.
Interior Minister Ihor Klimenko said people may still be under the rubble of buildings after the overnight attacks damaged six of the city’s 10 districts.
An entrance to the Kiev metro stop in the Svyatochinsky district was also damaged, officials said.
The Kiev metro stops, which are located at great depth, were used during the war as the city’s safest shelters from bombing.
In the greater Kiev area around the Ukrainian capital, a 68-year-old woman was killed and at least eight people were wounded, officials said. Russia launched one of the deadliest attacks on Kiev last week, using hundreds of drones, killing 28 people and injuring more than 150.
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