(Kyiv) Russian forces launched 32 explosive drones on Ukraine, mostly in the Kyiv region, during the night from Saturday to Sunday, according to the Ukrainian army which claimed to have shot down 25 of them.
“Last night, the occupiers attacked Ukraine with 32 Shahed-136/131 suicide drones, 25 of which were destroyed by the Ukrainian air defense forces. The Russian occupiers directed most of the attack drones towards the Kyiv region,” the Ukrainian General Staff indicated in its situation update on Sunday morning.
According to the Kyiv military administration, an apartment was damaged by falling debris, as were cars and trolleybus cables. One person was injured, but his life is not in danger, she wrote on Telegram.
An AFP journalist in Kyiv heard a dozen explosions overnight.
According to Sergii Popko, head of the capital’s military administration, debris from downed drones fell on the Sviatoshynskyi, Podilskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts.
Debris fell on a residential building in the Shevchenkivskyi district, in central Kyiv, without causing any casualties, but causing a fire which was extinguished by the owners, Mr. Popko said on Telegram.
In the Sviatoshynskyi district, located in the west of the capital, debris caused a fire in Sovky Park, one of the city’s best-known public gardens, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.
In the Podilskyi district in central Kyiv, debris fell on an open space and doctors who arrived on the scene treated a person suffering from an attack of “acute stress”, according to Mr. Klitschko.
Still according to the mayor, more flaming debris fell on a road in the central Solomyanskyi district.
Three military ships destroyed in the Black Sea
Russia claimed on Sunday to have destroyed three fast military launches in the Black Sea with Ukrainian soldiers on board who were heading, according to the Russian army, towards annexed Crimea.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, “in the western part of the Black Sea, […] the naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed three American-made “Willard Sea Force” military speedboats [transportant] landing groups of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram.
The speedboats were “heading towards the Crimean peninsula” annexed by Russia in 2014, the statement said.
The Russian military also announced, in separate statements, that eight Ukrainian drones had been shot down by air defense over Crimea and another in the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine.
On August 24, Ukraine congratulated itself on having carried out a rare commando operation on the Crimean peninsula and having raised the national flag there.
Ukrainian special forces units had come from the sea, landing in the west of the peninsula, before leaving “without losses” according to Ukrainian military intelligence.