Ukraine says 15 people hurt in 'massive' Russian attack on capital
Russia launched dozens of attack drones and ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight in one of the biggest combined aerial attacks on the Ukrainian capital of the three-year war, damaging several apartment buildings and injuring at least 15 people.
In the early hours of the morning, Reuters witnesses saw and heard successive waves of drones flying over Kyiv, and a series of explosions jolted the city. The capital also reverberated with the sound of anti-aircraft batteries trying to bring down the drones.
Pictures posted online showed smoke billowing from the top of one block of flats and flames leaping from part of another as emergency crews trained water on it. An orange-red glow lit up the city as plumes of smoke wafted across the horizon.
By morning, the Kyiv city military administration reported damage in six districts of the Ukrainian capital, and a total so far of 14 people wounded.
As dawn broke on Saturday, residents at an apartment building just outside the centre of Kyiv were surveying the damage caused by drones.
Dozens of windows had been shattered, and balconies on one side of the building were smashed.
"I wish they'd agree to a ceasefire. To bomb people like this," said Olha Chyrukha, a 64-year-old resident. "The poor children! My three-year-old granddaughter was screaming scared."
A 62-year-old resident, who gave only her first name of Kateryna, said, "It is a great distress for people. The first thing that I thought is that people got hurt for nothing."
Both Ukraine and Russia said they will comply with a request from US President Donald Trump to hold fresh talks about a peace deal. The two sides carried out a major prisoner exchange on Friday, which Trump welcomed as the first step towards more positive developments. However, Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of not being serious about seeking an end to the fighting.
Ukraine's air force said that Russia had fired 14 ballistic missiles at targets across Ukraine overnight and launched 250 long-range drones, with Kyiv the main target.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the overnight attacks.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said fragments from one drone struck the top floor of an apartment building in the Solomynskyi district on the west bank of the Dnipro River, which bisects the city. One apartment building was on fire in the area as was one non-residential building.
Timur Tkachenko, head of the military administration, said a fire had also broken out on two floors of an apartment building in Dniprovskyi district on the opposite bank.
Officials also reported a fire in Obolon in the city's northern suburbs and fallen debris on a shopping centre in the same area. They said drone fragments hit open ground in a number of other widely separated neighbourhoods.
The overnight strikes followed several days of Ukrainian drone attacks - some 800 attacks - on targets inside Russia, including the capital Moscow.
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