Russian strikes kill two in Kiev as Moscow says it hit military facilities

Russian strikes on Kiev have killed two people and wounded at least five others, including a child, Ukrainian emergency services said on Thursday, after explosions rocked the capital shortly after midnight.

The attack is the latest in Russia’s near-daily bombardment of Ukrainian cities, as Moscow presses its offensive, which is now in its fifth year.

AFP journalists in Kiev heard a series of explosions after a Ukrainian air force alert reported the approach of several ballistic missiles.

There were a number of bright flashes in the sky over Ukraine’s capital, followed by half a dozen detonations, they said. “Two people have been killed in Kiev as a result of an enemy attack,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram on Thursday.

Ukraine’s state emergency service said five people were wounded and that the Sviatoshynskyi and Darnytskyi districts were hit.

Mayor Klitschko wrote on social media earlier that a warehouse was hit while “missile debris fell on non-residential buildings”. At the same time, Kharkiv, the main city in northeast Ukraine, was hit by combat drones, its mayor said.

The attack came a few hours after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited to boost defence ties.

Military, industrial facilities

Russia’s defence ministry later said it had struck military and industrial facilities in Kiev involved in the production and storage of medium- and long-range drones.

It also said it had targeted infrastructure at the ports of Odesa and Pivdennyi used to receive, store and handle military cargo and fuel supplies.