Ukraine live updates: Kyiv was rocked by drone strikes

Kyiv, Ukraine – Kyiv was hit by drone strikes on Monday morning, a Ukrainian official said, with two powerful explosions in the city center, continuing Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities intensified last week.

An hour and a half after the first round of explosions, more were heard shortly after 8:15 a.m., and a number of air defense shots were heard. Thick white smoke covered parts of central Kyiv.

The bombings in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, were the most serious since the series of strikes on October 10, and those attacks were launched after an explosion on a strategic bridge to Crimea, which Russia blamed on Ukraine, and with Ukraine continuing to Make it relevant. Battlefield gains in a counterattack in the south of the country.

“The Russians think this will help them, but these measures look like torture,” Andrey Yermak, a senior adviser to the Ukrainian president, said on Monday.

The wave of Russian attacks a week ago, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said deliberately targeted civilians and energy infrastructure, was one of the widest in months. The missiles struck cities across the country, killing at least 19 people.

The latest attack on Kyiv came as many people were getting ready for work and children were just waking up for their school day, with in-person lessons resuming this fall. Instead of heading to the classrooms, the children, some of whom were already wearing school uniforms, made their way to the shelters in the basement. At the Tetralna metro station in the heart of the city, residents scroll through their phones in search of updates.

In the morning calm between the explosions, a humming noise of an engine passing relatively slowly over the city could be heard, indicating the presence of a drone. The sirens went off about 10 minutes before the first attacks.

In the streets near the site of the strike, stinging smoke spread around him. The upper floors of an office building were burning, and debris, broken glass, and documents were scattered on the nearby sidewalk. The building seemed to be empty when it was hit shortly after 6 am

“I woke up from an explosion, went down and saw a building burning,” said Ihor Stupakov, a programmer who lives close to the site of one of the explosions. He said he then heard a buzzing sound above his head and looked up.

“I saw the witness” flying near the plane, he said, referring to the drone. “I saw soldiers shooting at it with rifles and a missile, and I saw it explode in the sky.”

“They want to scare us into entering negotiations,” he said of the Russians’ motive for attacking infrastructure and cities. They want to frighten the population.

He added that the burning building was “not a military target.”

One of the drones flew low over downtown office buildings and apartment complexes, which can be seen from the streets below. A cacophony of small arms fire erupted, as soldiers at checkpoints or other locations in the city opened fire from their rifles.

The attack unnerved Kyiv by showing that last week’s strikes on the capital could be repeated.

Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, confirmed in a post on Telegram that a number of strikes had hit the Shevchenko district, the same part of central Kyiv that was targeted one week ago. He said officials were still working to determine if there were any infections, and urged residents to stay in shelters.

“Fire departments are working. A number of apartment buildings have been damaged. Mr. Klitschko, who posted pictures of what he said were the remains of one of the downed drones,” wrote Mr. Klitschko.

At least one strike appears to have directly hit a building close to the site of one of last Monday’s missile strikes, in the heart of the capital near the central train station. The strike targeted the energy infrastructure, according to Anton Gerashchenko, a Advisor to the Ministry of the InteriorNo injuries or deaths were reported.

The attacks on Kyiv a week ago killed five people and injured dozens.

Austin Ramsey Contribute to the preparation of reports.