At least five people were killed in Ukraine on Wednesday, including four in a residential building in the capital after a new “massive” air attack by Russia, during a visit by the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell.
Like many Western officials before him during the two years of war, the diplomat had to take refuge in an air raid shelter, noted an AFP journalist.
“Yet another massive attack on our state. Six regions were targeted by the enemy,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.
The last attack targeting the Ukrainian capital dates back to January 23.
On Wednesday morning, missiles and drones, launched in several waves, fell on the country, killing at least four people and injuring 38 in kyiv, according to the regional administration.
In Mykolaiv, another man died in an attack which destroyed the roofs of around twenty houses, said Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych.
In the capital, the alert was triggered shortly before 6 a.m. local time, and lasted three hours. Several series of loud explosions resonated in the city, according to AFP journalists on site.
In total, Russia launched 44 missiles and 20 explosive drones at Ukraine, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armies Valery Zaluzhny said on Telegram. According to him, these include 36 cruise projectiles of various types, three ballistic missiles and 5 S-300 missiles.
Of this total of 64 devices, Ukrainian forces intercepted 29 cruise missiles and 15 drones, added the same source.
As usual, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have only targeted military targets and that they had “all been destroyed”.
In kyiv, debris from a downed missile fell on a 17-story residential building in the Golosiïvsky district, causing a large fire and killing four people and injuring 38 others, according to the town hall.
A fire truck used a large crane to extinguish the fire with jets of water and firefighters also entered the building late in the morning, noted an AFP journalist on site.
“The windows exploded”
On several upper floors, smoke was billowing from the windows and the walls were blackened.
“I even saw the missile flying, it rose then flew with its tail on fire, I couldn’t see where, then it hit,” resident Valentyna Kozatchouk told AFP. a 63-year-old retiree.
According to her, all the doors leading to the landing and the stairwell were blown out and the windows on her balcony were damaged.
Another resident, Oksana, and her 3-year-old daughter were awakened by the explosion.
“Between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., we heard very loud missiles and, with the last detonation, the strongest, the windows exploded,” this 43-year-old woman told AFP.
On the eastern bank of the Dnieper River, high-voltage lines were damaged, leaving 19,000 consumers in the Dniprovsky and Desniansky districts without electricity, the Energy Ministry said in a statement.
Kharkiv, the country’s second city located in the east, came under fire from S-300 missiles, said regional governor Oleg Synegoubov. A woman was slightly injured and infrastructure damaged, he said.
In the Lviv region, a missile hit an industrial site in the town of Drogobych, about fifty kilometers from the Polish border, without causing any casualties, regional governor Maksym Kozytsky said on Telegram. However, another missile was able to be shot down in this region, according to the same source.