UKRAINE: Residents of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, were urged to seek shelter in air raid bunkers early on Friday as sirens wailed around the city, a day after Russia launched one of the biggest aerial strikes since the conflict began in February.
Kyiv under high alert following Russian drone attack
Kyiv’s city government, shortly after 2 am, issued an alert to residents about the air raid sirens and directed them to seek shelter via its Telegram messaging app channel.
The governor of the Kyiv region, Olekskiy Kuleba, wrote on Telegram that an “attack by drones” was underway. Numerous explosions and the sound of anti-aircraft fire have been heard 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Kiev.
Vladimir Putin’s soldiers unleashed one of the biggest missile assaults on Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion in the closing days of December, striking multiple cities and allegedly harming civilians. Now in its eleventh month, the war in Ukraine is witnessing a resurgence of lethal Russian attacks.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said in a video address that air commanders in the country’s centre, southern, eastern, and western regions successfully repulsed 54 Russian missiles and 11 drones on Thursday.
Zelensky acknowledged that power disruptions affected the majority of Ukraine’s regions. The capital Kyiv, Odesa and Kherson in the south and the neighbouring territories, and the area around Lviv close to the western border with Poland were the locations where losing electricity was “especially difficult.”
“But compared to what would have occurred if not for our brave anti-aircraft men and air defence, this is nothing,” he continued.
The war-torn nation’s operational eastern command reports that Ukraine’s air defence forces and anti-aircraft missile units have so far today destroyed at least 10 drones.
In the oblasts of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia, nine Shahed-type drones and one Marlyn drone were downed.
In footage shared on social media, emergency personnel could be seen digging through the smoking remains of Kyiv residences that had been devastated by a blast and missile smoke trails.
Oleksiv Arestovych, a presidential office adviser for Ukraine, said that Russia had fired “more than 100 missiles in several waves” a day earlier.
Also Read: Ukrainian Civilians Flee Recaptured Kherson as Russian Attacks Intensify
