Russia launched a drone strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on New Year’s day, wounding at least three people and damaging buildings in two districts, city officials said.
Explosions boomed across the morning sky shortly after Ukraine’s air force warned of drones approaching the city.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said air-defences were repelling an enemy attack, and that two floors of a residential building had been partially destroyed in the strike.
Debris had also damaged a non-residential premise in another neighbourhood, he said.
Russia has carried out regular air strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities far behind the front line of its nearly three-year-old invasion.
Ukraine said on Tuesday it downed six of 21 missiles launched overnight and in the early morning by Russia, reporting minor damage in the capital of Kyiv and hits on infrastructure in the northern Sumy region.
A woman was wounded in the Kyiv region, where a private house was damaged, the interior ministry said on social media.
Missile debris damaged three private buildings and two cars in one of the capital’s districts, Kyiv’s military administration said on social media.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia’s hypersonic Kinzhal missile was among the six downed.
Russia fired a total of 13 missiles on the town of Shostka, in the northern Sumy region, its governor said in televised comments.
The strike damaged 12 high-rise residential buildings, two educational facilities, three boiler houses and a clinic, according to local authorities. Some infrastructure was destroyed, it added.
Moscow’s forces also used 40 drones to attack the country. Air defence units shot down 16 of them and 24 more failed to reach targets, Ukraine’s air force said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on social media that it had carried out a strike at a military airfield infrastructure and gunpowder charges production facility in Ukraine on Tuesday morning. It said all targets had been hit.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
