KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Explosive-laden suicide drones hit Ukraine’s capital as families prepared to start their week early Monday, the blast echoing through Kiev and sending people to shelters.
Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital’s central Shevchenko district was hit, with several apartment buildings being damaged and a non-residential building set on fire. Nothing was immediately known about victims. The intended targets of the drones were not immediately clear, but last week’s Russian attacks have hit infrastructure, including electricity supplies.
Witnesses posted videos of drones buzzing through the clear morning sky over Kiev and of what sounded like gunshots from people trying to shoot them.
Explosions were heard from the same central district in Kiev where a week ago a rocket attack tore a hole in a children’s playground. Posts on social media showed clouds of smoke in the early morning light.
Russian forces attacked Kiev with Iranian Shahed drones, Andrii Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, wrote in a post on Telegram’s social media site. Russia has repeatedly used so-called suicide drones in recent weeks to attack urban centers and infrastructure, including power plants.
Strikes in central Kiev had become a rarity in recent months after Russian forces failed to take the capital at the start of the war. Last week’s early morning strikes were the first explosions heard in Kiev’s city center in several months, and are putting both Kiev and the rest of the country on high alert as the war approaches nine months. Monday’s explosions appeared to continue what many fear could be more frequent in urban centers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week’s strikes were in retaliation for the bombing of a bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula to the Russian mainland. Putin blames Ukraine for masterminding the explosion, which halted traffic over the bridge and prevented Moscow from using the bridge to supply Russian troops in the occupied regions of southern Ukraine.
The attack on Kiev comes as fighting in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has intensified in recent days, as has the ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south at Kherson and Zaporizhzhya. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his Sunday evening address that there was heavy fighting around the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions make up most of the industrial east known as the Donbas, and were two of the four regions annexed by Russia in September in violation of international law.
On Sunday, the Russian-backed regime in the Donetsk region said Ukraine had fired a direct hit at its central administrative building. No casualties were reported.
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