Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the surrounding region for the first time in more than seven weeks and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian border guards told they had retaken a village in the country’s northeast adjacent to the Russian border. Officials in the east, the focus of Russia’s slow 20-month old advance had repelled numerous attacks by Moscow’s troops and they expected further assaults, particularly around the devastated town of Avdiivka.
The head of Kyiv city military administration, Serhiy Popko said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at around 8 am (0600 GMT).
Popko was quoted by Reuters as saying, “After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv," Popko said on the Telegram messaging app. "The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital.”
There were no casualties or major damage, he further added.
Meanwhile, a regional governor of the central Kyiv region, Ruslan Kravchenko said that as many as five private houses and several commercial buildings in the area were damaged. Two Russian missles struck a field between settlements, he said.
19 Iranian-made “Shahed” drones were shot down by the air defence of Ukraine out of 31 launched by the Russian forces overnight in the southern and eastern regions, the air force informed.
“This is not the first or the last combined attack,” said Ukrainian intelligence official Andriy Yuslov on national television. He also highlighted increasing numbers of air alerts in recent days.
(With inputs from Reuters)
