Central Kyiv rocked by explosions as Russia continues strikes across Ukraine
Kyiv city mayor Vitaliy Klichko said the central Shevchenko district of the capital had been hit.
Several loud explosions have rocked the centre of the Ukrainian capital, as waves of explosive-laden suicide drones struck a week after Russia orchestrated a massive air strike across the country.
Kyiv’s central Shevchenko district was among the areas hit, with apartment blocks damaged and a non-residential building on fire, city mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
An Associated Press photographer who was out shooting morning scenes of Kyiv caught one of the drones on camera, with its triangle-shaped wing and pointed warhead clearly visible against the blue sky.
Drones came in several waves and buzzed overhead with angry hums from their engines. There was no immediate word on casualties.
The explosions came from the same central Kyiv district where a week ago a missile struck a children’s playground and intersection near the Kyiv National University’s main buildings.
Russian forces struck Kyiv with Iranian Shahed drones, wrote Andrii Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, in a post on the Telegram social media site.
Strikes in central Kyiv had become a rarity in the last several months after Russian forces failed to capture the capital at the beginning of the war.
Last week’s early morning strikes were the first explosions heard in Kyiv’s city centre in several months, and put Kyiv as well as the rest of the country back on edge as the war nears nine months.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week’s strikes were in retaliation for the bombing of a bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland.
Mr Putin blames Ukraine for masterminding the blast, which suspended traffic over the bridge and curtailed Moscow’s ability to use the bridge to supply Russian troops in the occupied regions of southern Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday night in his evening address that there was heavy fighting around the cities of Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region.
The Donetsk and Luhansk regions make up the bulk of the industrial east known as the Donbas, and were two of four regions annexed by Russia in September in defiance of international law.
On Sunday, the Russian-backed regime in the Donetsk region said Ukraine had shelled its central administrative building in a direct hit. No casualties were reported.
