Russia launched a new barrage of drones and missiles at the Ukrainian capital Kyiv yesterday, officials said, killing seven people, wounding 21, and disrupting electricity and heating systems as Ukraine raced to finalise a US-backed peace deal.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces launched more than 460 drones and 22 missiles, their second major strike on Kyiv this month. The air force said it had downed most of the drones and around half of the missiles.
“The primary targets were the energy sector and everything that keeps normal life going,” Zelenskiy said in a post on the Telegram app.
He said that four Russian drones had flown over Ukraine’s neighbours Moldova and Nato-member Romania. Romania said it had scrambled fighter jets to track drones which breached its territory near the border with Ukraine.
Romania shares a 650km land border with Ukraine and has had drones breach its airspace and fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly since Russia began attacking Kyiv’s ports across the Danube.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said Russian strikes had disrupted electricity supplies to more than 102,000 people in five Ukrainian regions.
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the military administration for the capital, said damage was recorded at 13 sites across Kyiv. Residential and commercial buildings and infrastructure were damaged.
Kyiv city officials also said heating supplies across several districts in the capital were restricted. The weather is unseasonably warm with temperatures hovering at about 8C.
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