Russian forces launched a wave of drone attacks on Ukraine’s capital before dawn on Sunday for the first time in nearly two weeks, according to Ukrainian officials.
Air-raid alarms sounded about 2:30 a.m. in the capital, Kyiv. Explosions were later reported.
Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration, said that air defenses had destroyed all of the drones in Kyiv’s airspace. It was the first time in 12 days that Russian forces had used Iranian-made attack drones to target the capital, he said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
No one was killed, but debris from downed drones damaged three homes in the Kyiv region, according to the local military administration in a statement on Telegram. And a man suffered a leg injury in one of those homes, it added.
The overnight attacks came as Ukraine’s military reported “heavy fighting” on the front lines in the east, where Kyiv’s forces are waging a counteroffensive to claw back territory captured by Russia.
The Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia had launched a total of eight Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones and three cruise missiles at targets across the country overnight, all of which were destroyed. Russia has repeatedly launched overnight drone attacks on Kyiv since its full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
It was also a “loud” night in the Ukrainian-held parts of the southern Kherson region, according to the local military administration. A Russian attack on the village of Mylove wounded a 13-year-old, according to Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, a spokesman for the regional military administration, speaking on national television. The claim has not been independently verified.
