Kyiv comes under heavy Russian missile attack, killing at least 13

Original article by Dan Sabbagh in Kyiv and agencies

A heavy Russian bombardment has killed at least 13 people in Ukraine’s capital and its surrounding region overnight, authorities have said.

A missile attack on Kyiv struck residential areas and warehouses, said the mayor, Vitali Klitschko. The attack damaged residential buildings, a medical facility and an educational institution. Thirteen people were killed and 33 injured, he said.

A children’s hospital was struck in the Solomianskyi district to the west of the heart of the capital, with windows blown out and cars burned. At least two residential buildings were also reported hit in the area.

Explosions could be heard from the city centre at about midnight on Wednesday, earlier than the normal timing of Russian missile strikes, and there was a further wave of attacks early on Thursday morning.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched dozens of ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles and 168 drones in the overnight attack. It said Kinzhal and Zircon hypersonic missiles were used, as well as Iskander and North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles and Shahed drones.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, urged a global response to the attacks. “While Moscow is investing in ballistic missiles and escalation, such strikes do not always receive the response they should from the world. And as long as Ukraine does not have enough anti-ballistic defence, Russia will not consider peace seriously,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

An attack in Brovary district of the broader Kyiv region killed one man and wounded another, said the regional governor, Tymur Tkachenko. “One industrial facility has been damaged. All relevant services are on site, working to extinguish the fire,” he said.

Ukraine’s air force had warned of Russian Kalibr cruise missiles passing over the regional village of Kaharlyk and heading towards the capital.

Poland’s military command said it had mobilised aircraft and activated air defences aimed at protecting Polish airspace, particularly in areas bordering Ukraine.

Romania’s defence ministry said radar systems detected aerial targets near the Ukrainian border overnight, prompting the scrambling of two Spanish fighter jets deployed on Nato missions and a Romanian air force helicopter.

The ministry said a drone entered Romanian airspace near Galati before crashing in an unpopulated area in Tulcea county.

Russia also reported a large Ukrainian drone attack. Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said 250 drones had flown toward the Moscow region between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, with most destroyed at a significant distance from the capital itself.

On Wednesday a Russian drone hit a minibus in Kherson, killing four people, said Ukrainian prosecutors, while at Zhytomyr in central Ukraine a Banderol drone-missile hit the police headquarters, killing two officers and wounding at least 20 others, the police service said.

While Kyiv has faced near-nightly attacks, Ukraine has also escalated its retaliatory strikes on Russia in recent months, partly to put pressure on Moscow to come to the negotiating table after nearly four and a half years of war. In Russia’s border regions of Belgorod and Bryansk two people were killed when drones hit cars, Russian officials said on Friday last week.

Thursday’s latest attack on Kyiv came as Zelenskyy grappled with renewed scandal extending into the upper reaches of his administration. Ukraine’s president fired by decree one of his senior aides, Iryna Mudra, after reports in Ukrainian media that her house was being searched by officials investigating an alleged money-laundering scheme.

The Nabu anti-corruption agency said it was investigating a criminal conspiracy that involved “the participation of high-ranking officials from the office of the president” and several others. It is an extension of a high-level corruption scandal that has been running for months with government officials and wealthy influential figures variously being investigated, dismissed from office, arrested or fleeing the country.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s regime has continued to face Ukrainian long-range strikes that, as well as burning the warehouses of the online retailer Wildberries, have caused petrol shortages after oil refineries and depots were blown up.

With cars forming long queues at petrol stations, their operators are capping the number of litres sold per customer. Moscow confirmed on Wednesday that Russia was having to import refined petroleum products to try to stabilise supply. The Reuters news agency used industry contacts and market data to establish that a tanker from India had recently arrived and unloaded, while supplies were also being sourced from east Asia.

It is a remarkable reversal of flow given that India has been one of the keenest buyers of Russian oil – sales of which can occur only through illicit channels such as Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of tankers, or officially at a capped price that is held down by international sanctions.