KYIV:
Russia battered Ukraine’s capital Kyiv overnight with one of its biggest ballistic missile barrages of the war, killing at least one person and wounding 16 others, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday.
A series of powerful explosions thundered across the darkened city in an attack that involved 41 missiles of various types, the air force said, ravaging buildings across several districts and sparking fires.
Residential buildings, warehouses, a supermarket and a dormitory were among the structures damaged, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, adding that three people were in a serious condition.
Separately on Sunday, four people were killed and 19 wounded in a strike on a postal depot outside the northeastern city of Kharkiv near the Russian border, the regional governor said.
At one location in western Kyiv, emergency workers picked through smouldering debris and doused bombed-out apartments.
A resident who identified himself as Vlad told Reuters he had been inside his apartment when a blast tore off his balcony door, which smashed him in the head.
“My grandmother lives with me, and she can’t walk. How could I run away and leave her behind?” he said. Closer to the city centre, the strikes damaged a frequently targeted metro station and destroyed an underground pedestrian passage nearby, leaving a pile of rubble.
On Sunday evening, rescuers in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia were digging for survivors after Russian bombs struck residential buildings there, authorities said, killing at least two people and wounding 14.
Russian forces have stepped up ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities in recent weeks as Ukraine struggles with a critical shortage of U.S.-designed air defences.
Kyiv’s military said it had shot down 18 missiles in Sunday’s attack, which was aimed primarily at the Ukrainian capital. It added that 108 out of 125 drones had also been downed.
Last week, Zelenskiy said the U.S. and Ukraine have reached a political agreement on licences to make Patriot interceptor missiles. He added that he hoped production could begin by the end of the year. Reuters
