Kyiv: Russia launched a barrage of ballistic missile strikes on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Saturday, killing at least nine people and injuring 28 others, including four children, Ukrainian officials said.
More than a dozen explosions were heard across the city during multiple waves of attacks, according to reports.
“A hell of a night in Kyiv,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.
“Failing to achieve its goals on the battlefield, Russia is intensifying its air attacks and terror against civilians. Ukraine urgently needs additional air and missile defense systems and interceptors.”
In the fifth year of the war, fighting continues along more than 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) of front line, although Russian advances have slowed by more than half so far this year, military analysts said.
At the same time, Russia has increased attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, while Ukraine continues to face shortages of air defences capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, which travel at several times the speed of sound.
Russia denies targeting civilians in the war launched by its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Saturday’s strike was the second major attack on Kyiv this week after strikes on Thursday killed nine people, including six members of one family in a village near Kryvyi Rih, and a suspected Russian cruise missile landed in Poland.
The Prosecutor General’s Office said damage was recorded in seven districts across Kyiv, a city with a population of about 3 million people.
Fires broke out across the city, and power outages were reported in some areas.
Prosecutors said seven people were killed in the Darnytskyi district on the left bank of the Dnipro River, while two others died in the Solomyanskyi district on the right bank of the city.
They added that 28 people were injured, including four children who suffered multiple shrapnel wounds and lacerations.
