A residential building in Kyiv was hit Thursday evening in a new Russian attack, leaving two people injured. Ukrainian authorities claim to have shot down 24 drones.
A residential building in Kyiv was hit Thursday evening in a new Russian attack, injuring two people, said Ukrainian authorities, who claim to have shot down 24 drones out of 28 launched during the night.
This is the first incident of this kind in months in the Ukrainian capital. While Kyiv is regularly targeted by Russian drone and missile attacks, most of them are shot down by air defense.
In total, “during the night of December 22, Russian occupying forces attacked with 28 Shahed drones,” the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement.
Twenty-four of these Iranian-made drones regularly used by Moscow for these attacks against its neighbor “were shot down”, according to the press release.
In Kyiv, the air alarm was sounded late in the evening. Shortly after, residents heard loud explosions. The town hall initially announced that air defense was operating in the city calling on residents to stay in shelters.
“A residential building in Kyiv hit by a Shahed,” wrote the head of the presidential administration Andriy Iermak on Telegram.
The incident occurred in the Solomiansky district in the southwest of the capital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko added on Telegram, reporting “flames on the upper floors” of the building.
One man was hospitalized in this neighborhood, another received medical treatment on site, he added without giving further details.
The city’s military administration published photos on Telegram of apartments with bay windows blown out by the explosions.
She claimed that it was not a drone strike but fragments from a downed drone ensuring that the fire could be quickly extinguished.
In the Golosiïvsky district (south of the city), a fragment of a destroyed drone fell on a high-rise building, without causing any casualties, the military administration said on Telegram.
Shortly after, Mr. Klitschko announced that debris from another drone shot down by air defense had fallen on a private house in the Darnytsky district in the east of the city, causing a fire.