KYIV: More than two dozen Russian drones targeted Ukraine's capital early on Friday, officials said, injuring two people and damaging residential buildings in Moscow's latest overnight drone strike against Ukraine.
It was the sixth such attack on Kyiv this month and part of a larger drone swarm aimed at parts of central, southern and western Ukraine, the country's air force said. Ukrainian air defences shot down 24 out of 28 attack drones, it said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that a drone had hit a block of flats in the Solomyanskyi district, south of the city centre, triggering a fire on the upper floors that was quickly brought under control. Emergency services said several apartments were damaged on the 24th, 25th and 26th storeys of the building. Two people were injured, including one being treated in hospital.
The incident occurred a few hundred metres from a maternity hospital. A video posted on social media showed a giant orange flame going skyward in the night. Klitschko also said drone fragments had set fire to a house under construction in Darnytskyi district on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River that runs through the city.
Pictures posted online showed construction materials strewn about the site. Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said fragments from a downed drone had struck an apartment building in a third area, also south of the city centre. He posted pictures showing smashed windows and heavy damage to apartments.
Ukraine's southern command said an unspecified infrastructure facility in the Mykolaiv region had been struck and that fragments from a downed drone had damaged a grain storage facility in the Odesa region. No injuries were reported and the resulting fires were extinguished, authorities said.
In the south, Russia tried to hit port infrastructure - a frequent target since it pulled out of a UN-brokered deal reached after Russia's February 2022 attack that allowed safe passage of Ukrainian grain shipments via the Black Sea.
"...Wreckage of the downed drone damaged a granary. There was a fire that was quickly tamed by the company's employees," the southern military command said, describing the aftermath in the Odesa region. In the neighbouring Mykolaiv region, an unidentified infrastructure facility was hit, causing a fire, the military added. There were no reports of injuries in either region.
Later on Friday, Mykola Oleschuk, chief of Ukraine's air force, said it had downed three Russian SU-34 fighter-bombers "in a southern direction", which he did not specify.
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