(Kyiv) Kyiv was targeted overnight by a new “massive” attack by Russian drones, which left two people injured, damaged buildings and caused fires in several neighborhoods, the military administration of the capital said.
Posted at 6:38 a.m.
Russia, which launched its invasion of Ukraine almost three years ago, has in recent weeks intensified its strikes on Ukrainian cities, particularly Kyiv.
The capital was targeted by drone attacks for six days during the first week of November and 20 days in October, according to press releases from the military administration.
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, air defense destroyed “more than thirty” of these aircraft above the city and its suburbs, the administration said in a press release on Telegram.
The drones were arriving “in waves, from different directions”, some flying very low to make them more difficult to spot, she detailed.
PHOTO UKRAINIAN EMERGENCY SERVICES, PROVIDED BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Firefighters clear the rubble of a building damaged by a Russian drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The air alert began shortly after midnight and lasted eight hours, according to AFP journalists on site. Reporters heard the sound of drones flying over the city center, as well as air defense fire attempting to shoot them down and explosions.
Drone fragments fell in six districts of Kyiv out of a total of ten, causing two injuries whose lives are not in danger, according to the military administration.
The attack caused a fire in a residential building of around thirty floors in the city center, residents had to be evacuated, the town hall said.
In other neighborhoods, fires affected a private clinic and a business center, a gas station and houses, according to a press release from the town hall.
The West must negotiate to avoid “the destruction of the Ukrainian population”
The West must negotiate in order to avoid the “destruction of the Ukrainian population”, the head of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, ruled on Thursday, according to Russian agencies.
“Now that the situation in the theater of hostilities is not in favor of the Kyiv regime, the West has a choice: continue its financing [de l’Ukraine] and the destruction of the Ukrainian people or admit the existing realities and start negotiating,” he said at a meeting of security officials from countries neighboring Russia.
Shoigu, who was defense minister until May 2024, also once again accused the West of using Kyiv to defeat Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his assault on Ukraine in February 2022 and then claimed the annexation of entire regions of the country. Kyiv was able to resist thanks to Western military aid.
But, for the past year, faced with better-armed and more numerous Russian forces as well as growing Western procrastination, the Ukrainian army has been in retreat, and territorial losses have accelerated this fall.
Russia, which bombs Ukrainian cities daily, demands the surrender of Ukraine, that it cede five regions, that it renounces its alliance with the West and its ambition to join NATO.
Americans and Europeans assure Kyiv of their unwavering support, but refuse to authorize Ukraine to strike Russian territory with the weapons they provide, and to shoot down Russian missiles targeting Ukrainian cities, for fear that this would leads to escalation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky strongly criticized the West, noting that Moscow is leading a continuous escalation in the conflict, including the suspected deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers to fight Ukraine. The West must negotiate to avoid “the destruction of the Ukrainian population”.
