Ukraine war: ‘Six dead’ as Russia strikes again with ‘kamikaze drones’ and missiles

Russia attacked central Kyiv during Monday morning’s rush hour with drones and shelled other cities around the country, the second time in a week it has unleashed strikes across Ukraine.

Local authorities said in the early afternoon that at least six people — including a pregnant woman — were killed in the strikes, in the capital and the northeastern region of Sumy.

“All night and all morning, the enemy terrorises the civilian population. Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s prime minister has said many areas have been left without power after several Russian strikes targeted key infrastructure.

The United States and United Nations have condemned the attacks.

‘Kamikaze drones’

Three people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in the Ukrainian capital when a “kamikaze” drone hit a brick residential building on the edge of the central Shevchenkivskyi district, the city mayor said.

Earlier, Vitali Klitschko said that one woman had died and three other people had been taken to hospital, while at least one more was “still under the rubble”.

An AFP reporter saw one of the drones crash into a building in the Ukrainian capital as two kneeling policemen tried to shoot it down with their service weapons.

Shortly after air raid sirens sounded, several explosions were heard before 7 a.m. local time (0600 CET) and again after 8:00 am (7:00 CEST). 

The head of the Ukrainian president’s staff Andriy Yermak said on the Telegram app that the capital was being attacked by “kamikaze drones”.

Witnesses posted videos of drones buzzing across bright morning skies over Kyiv and of what sounded like gunshots of people trying to shoot them down.

‘Hundreds of areas’ without power after Russian strikes

In the Sumy region, regional governor Dmytro Zhivitsky said at least three people had been killed and nine injured after “three Russian rockets hit civilian infrastructure”.

Several Russian strikes on Monday morning targeted crucial infrastructure in three regions, leaving “hundreds of localities” without electricity, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal said.

The affected regions are around Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk in central Ukraine, and Sumy in the northeast, he added. “Hundreds of localities are without electricity.” 

A large fire broke out at an energy facility in the Dnipropetrovsk region after an overnight missile hit, a local official said earlier. Ukraine also reported strikes that set ablaze a sunflower oil terminal in the southern port of Mykolaiv.

Russia has repeatedly been using the so-called suicide drones in recent weeks to target urban centres and infrastructure, including power stations.

Renewed Russian shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant caused it to be disconnected again from Ukraine’s power grid, Ukrainian state energy firm Energoatom said.

Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which has often been shelled during the war, is occupied by Russian forces but operated by Ukrainian staff.

US condemns ‘desperate and reprehensible’ attacks

The US embassy in Kyiv condemned Russian attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Monday and said the United States stood with the Ukrainian people.

“More desperate and reprehensible Russian attacks this morning against civilians and civilian infrastructure. We admire the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people. We will stand with you for as long as it takes,” the embassy wrote on Twitter.

The new United Nations human rights chief, who took office on Monday as Russian drones struck the Ukrainian capital, said attacks on civilians in Ukraine had to stop.

“It is absolutely important that…civilians are not targeted, this is very difficult in densely populated urban areas,” said Volker Turk of Austria, the new High Commissioner for Human Rights. “The big call is to de-escalate”, he told reporters.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak called for Russia to be excluded from next month’s G20 summit in Indonesia, following Monday’s attacks.

The new wave of attacks comes exactly one week after Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital.

Last Monday, Russian bombings on a scale not seen for months hit Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, killing at least 19 people and injuring 105 others and causing an international outcry.

A British intelligence update said on Monday that logistical issues faced by Russian forces in southern Ukraine have become more acute following damage to a key bridge to Crimea earlier this month.

“With the Russian presence in Kherson strained, and the supply routes through Crimea degraded, the ground line of communication through Zaporizhzhia Oblast is becoming more important to the sustainability of Russia’s occupation,” the UK Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin.

Russian forces in southern Ukraine are likely increasing logistical supply flow via Mariupol in an attempt to compensate for the reduced capacity of the bridge, the update said.

‘Heavy fighting’ near Donetsk towns

Meanwhile, intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces was taking place around two towns in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Bakhmut and Soledar, President Zelenskyy said on Sunday.

“The key hot spots in Donbas are Soledar and Bakhmut,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “Very heavy fighting is going on there.”

Bakhmut has been a target of Russia’s armed forces in their slow move through the region since taking the key industrial towns of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk in June and July. Soledar is located just north of Bakhmut.

Earlier, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian positions on several fronts, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said, with the targets including towns in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions.

Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions — which make up the larger industrial Donbas, and the strategically important Kherson province in the south — constitute three of the four provinces Putin proclaimed as part of Russia last month, moves dismissed by Ukraine and its Western allies as illegitimate.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its forces had repelled Ukrainian efforts to advance in the Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, inflicting what it described as significant losses. 

Shelling by Ukrainian forces damaged the administration building in the city of Donetsk, the region’s capital, the head of its Russian-backed administration said.

There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to the attack. Donetsk was annexed by Russian-backed separatists in 2014 along with swathes of the Donbas.

Kremlin-backed separatist authorities have previously accused Ukraine of numerous strikes on infrastructure and residential targets in the occupied regions, without providing corroborating information.

Russian authorities said on Sunday that a criminal investigation had been opened after gunmen shot dead 11 people and injured 15 at a military training ground near the Ukrainian border.

Ukraine war: ‘Six dead’ as Russia strikes again with ‘kamikaze drones’ and missiles
Source: Reporters View PH