Russia launched its largest overnight air assault of the war, igniting a fire at Ukraine’s main government building in Kyiv and killing three people, including an infant whose body was recovered from the rubble, officials said Sunday.
“For the first time, the government building was damaged by an enemy strike — its roof and upper floors,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Rescuers are extinguishing the fire.”
Reuters’ witnesses saw the top floor of the main building of the Ukrainian government, located in the historic Pecherskyi district, burning, with thick smoke rising into the clear blue sky just after sunrise.
805 Drones Launched Overnight
Ukraine’s Air Force said on Telegram that Russia launched 805 drones into Ukraine overnight and 13 missiles, with Ukrainian defence units downing 751 drones and four missiles.
That was the highest number of drones Russia has used to attack the country since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Timur Tkachenko, the head of the capital’s military administration, said that the infant’s body was pulled from the rubble in the Darnytskyi district where a four-storey apartment building was damaged.
A young woman also died as a result of the attack on the district, which lies to the east of the Dnipro River, Tkachenko said.
State emergency officials said that 18 people were injured in the overnight attack that sowed fires throughout the city.
Moscow did not immediately comment on the attacks. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the strikes, but thousands have died in the war Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Earlier, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said an elderly woman died in a bomb shelter in Darnytskyi and a pregnant woman was among those injured.
State emergency officials said a fire broke out in two of the four stories of a residential building in the district that was hit in the drone attack, with its structure partially destroyed.
Drone Debris
In the western district of Sviatoshynskyi, several floors of a nine-storey residential building were partially destroyed, Klitschko and emergency officials said.
Falling drone debris set off fires in a 16-storey apartment building and two more nine-storey buildings, the mayor added.
Svyrydenko called for more weapons for Ukraine and for the world to respond to the Russian attacks.
“We will rebuild the buildings,” Svyrydenko said. “But lost lives cannot be brought back. The enemy terrorises and kills our people across the country every day.”
Smoke billowed out of apartment buildings, some with floors partially collapsed and facades crumbled, photographs on social media posted by emergency officials showed.
Russia was “deliberately and consciously striking civilian targets”, said Tkachenko, the Kyiv military administrator, on Telegram.
Dozens of explosions also shook Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk, cutting power to some areas and damaging a bridge across the Dnipro River, the city’s mayor, Vitalii Maletskyi, said on Telegram.
Russian strikes on Kryvyi Rih, also in central Ukraine, targeted transport and urban infrastructure, Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the military administration for the city, said on Telegram, but no injuries were reported.
In the southern city of Odesa, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings were damaged, with fires breaking out in several apartment blocks, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
With western Ukraine facing the threat of air attacks, Poland activated its own and allied aircraft to ensure air safety, the operational command of the Polish armed forces said.
(With inputs from Reuters)
