EBN – Russia has launched its biggest drone attack on Kyiv since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last year on Saturday.
Many in Ukraine fear it could be the start of a long campaign of strikes aimed at destroying the energy infrastructure.
“Kyiv was the main target,” the Ukrainian Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his Telegram channel. The capital was attacked in the early hours of Saturday with around 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones, Ukrainian officials claimed, adding that 71 had been shot down.
Five people were wounded by falling debris, including an 11-year-old child, the mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, said. Several buildings, including a kindergarten, were damaged and around 17,000 people in the Kyiv region were left without electricity as a result of the strikes. Power was restored later in the day.
For several quiet weeks, Moscow had been suspected of stockpiling missiles. That abruptly ended this morning.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strikes an act of “wilful terror” and said that his country will “continue to work to unite the world in defence against Russian terror”.
He is trying to secure continued Western support as well as negotiate Ukraine’s path to being a possible member of the European Union.
President Zelensky also noted that the attack came on the same day that Ukraine commemorates the 1932-1933 Holodomor famine – brought on by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin – which killed several million Ukrainians.
