Russia launched a barrage of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv, Ukraine’s air force said early on Monday.
Several series of explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital in the early hours of Monday, sending residents into bomb shelters.
Kyiv mayor Vitalii Klitschko said emergency services were called to the Holosiivskyi and Solomianskyi districts of Kyiv. One person was reportedly injured by falling debris in Shevchenkivskyi district, Mr Klitschko said.
“There will be an answer for everything. The enemy will feel it,” the head of the Presidential Office, Andrii Yermak, posted on his Telegram page following the attack.
Russia has once again brutally attacked Kharkiv today. As of now, there are nearly fifty injured. Rescuers continue to clear the debris, with reports of people trapped underneath. Ordinary civilian targets—shopping center, sports palace, urban areas.
Every such strike on Kharkiv… pic.twitter.com/dIE4rTbgYM
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 1, 2024
According to the air force, Russia fired several groups of cruise missiles accompanied by ballistic missile launches and a few drones, targeting Kyiv.
Serhii Popko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said more than 10 cruise missiles, about 10 ballistic missiles and a drone fired at the Ukrainian capital and its suburbs were destroyed by Ukraine’s air defences.
An explosion also rang out in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, according to Ukrainian media.
Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv region, confirmed an early morning strike on Kharkiv’s Industrialnyi district and said it set a residential building and several others on fire.
The barrage comes a day after Russia’s military reported intercepting and destroying 158 Ukrainian drones targeting multiple Russian regions in one of the biggest Ukrainian attacks of the war that has raged for about two-and-a-half years.
It also comes weeks after Ukranian forces’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which Moscow’s forces have struggled to push back so far and to which the Kremlin has vowed to respond.
