(Kyiv) Three people were killed in a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Saturday, a strike with ballistic missiles described as “heinous” by Kyiv and a retaliation by Moscow.
Published at 7:56 a.m.
A previous report given a little earlier by the military administration of the Ukrainian capital reported four deaths. At least three other people were injured in the attack, while another nighttime strike on the southern town of Zaporizhzhia left ten people injured.
Kyiv is frequently targeted by Russian drones and missiles, but casualties are rare in the capital, which is heavily protected by air defense systems and better able to repel attacks than anywhere else in the country.
The Russian army, for its part, declared that it had struck a military site in Kyiv in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of American ATACMS missiles.
“Russian armed forces carried out a group strike with precision-guided weapons against Ukrainian military-industrial facilities, including a site that manufactures long-range missiles,” according to the Russian Defense Minister.
PHOTO GLEB GARANICH, REUTERS
A crater is visible at the site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv, January 18, 2025.
“Putin wants war”
“More proof that Putin wants war, not peace,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiga said in a message posted on social media.
The Russian president “must be forced to accept a just peace by force and maximum economic and military pressure,” he added.
“All those who help the Russian state in this war must be put under such pressure that they feel it no less than these strikes. We can only do this in unity with the whole world,” President Zelensky, for his part, declared on social networks.
The downed missiles “fell” on the central Shevchenkivsky district of Kyiv, damaging an industrial building, a passage leading to the metro as well as residential buildings, according to the same source, adding that the local water supply was temporarily impacted.
PHOTO GLEB GARANICH, REUTERS
A man throws debris outside a store damaged by Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, January 18, 2025.
-An AFP journalist in Kyiv saw street flooding at the site of the attack and the charred structure of a bombed McDonald’s.
Air defenses were active in the capital throughout the night, the city’s mayor said in reports posted on social media.
The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down two Iskander ballistic missiles as well as 24 Russian attack drones overnight.
The attack comes as Kyiv has stepped up air attacks on Russian energy and military facilities in recent months.
Kyiv’s military has recently carried out strikes on several Russian oil depots, including two major attacks on a facility near a military airfield in Russia’s Saratov region that sparked fires that lasted several days.
“Everyone was asleep”
Thursday morning in Kyiv, loud explosions rang out in Kyiv according to AFP journalists, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was visiting to sign a 100-year security partnership with Ukraine.
Russian forces also “attacked the center of the city” of Zaporizhia, in the south of the country, local governor Ivan Fedorov reported on Saturday morning.
Russia “cynically” targeted the center of the city “while everyone was asleep.” Ten people were injured, including one seriously, he said.
PHOTO REUTERS
Priests and worshipers clear debris inside the St. Andrew’s Cathedral damaged by Russian missile strikes in Zaporizhia, January 18, 2025.
Russia also announced on Saturday that it had taken control of two other villages in eastern Ukraine, the latest territorial advance in its offensive.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement posted on Telegram that its forces had “liberated” the villages of Vremivka and Petropavlivka, both located in the Donetsk region.
The German Defense Minister said for his part on Saturday that he was open to sending German soldiers to Ukraine if a demilitarized zone was established there to guarantee respect for a hypothetical ceasefire with Russia.
