New Russian attacks on Kiev: Five dead, apartment buildings on fire

AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS

Russian drone and missile strikes in and around Kiev overnight killed five people, wounded dozens, set residential areas on fire and damaged the entrance to a metro station used as a shelter, Ukrainian officials said this morning.

“The Russian approach is the same as before – shoot where there may be people,” Timur Kachenko, the head of the Kiev military administration, said via the Telegram app. “Apartment buildings, exits from shelters – that’s the Russian style.” Russia has not commented on the attacks.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia started in February 2022, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict – mostly Ukrainians.

At least four people were killed in the busy Shevchenkivskyi district of Kiev, where the entrance to a high-rise apartment building was completely destroyed, Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said on Telegram.

“There are still people under the rubble,” Klimenko said.

The attack caused damage in six of the city’s ten districts, including several apartment buildings, and at least ten people were injured, Klimenko added.

In the greater Kiev area, a 68-year-old woman was killed and at least eight people were injured, regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk said via Telegram.

Photos released by Ukraine’s State Emergency Service showed rescuers pulling people out of burning buildings and structures in the dark. The service said a pregnant woman was among those rescued.

The entrance to a metro station in Kiev’s Sviatoshynskyi district was also damaged, as was a nearby bus station, city officials said.

Kiev's deep metro stations have been used as the safest bomb shelters since the start of the war.

The deadliest Russian attack on Kiev last week, when hundreds of drones were fired, killed 28 people and wounded more than 150, and Ukrainian officials said nearly 30 sites were hit in the multi-phase attack.