The attack began hitting different neighborhoods of kyiv in the early hours of Saturday, with new waves coming as the sun rose. The air raid warning lasted a total of six hours
A drone explosion is seen in the sky above the city during a Russian drone strike, part of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kiev, Ukraine, November 25, 2023. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
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A drone explosion is seen in the sky above the city during a Russian drone strike, part of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kiev, Ukraine, November 25, 2023. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
The Ukrainian capital suffered what authorities called the largest drone attack of Russia’s war on Saturday, wounding five people as the rumble of air defenses and explosions woke residents as the sun rose.
The attack began hitting different neighborhoods of kyiv in the early hours of Saturday, with new waves coming as the sun rose. The air raid alert lasted a total of six hours.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said more than 70 Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones had been launched toward Ukraine and most – but not all – had been shot down.
The air force later announced that it had shot down 71 Shahed drones and one missile.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko, writing on the Telegram app, said the attack injured five people, including an 11-year-old girl, and damaged buildings in all parts of the city.
Fragments from a downed drone had started a fire at a children’s daycare, he said.
Zelenskiy stressed that the attack took place in the early hours of the day, as Ukrainians commemorated their worst national tragedy: the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933, during which several million people died of starvation .
“Deliberate terror…Russian leaders are proud to be able to kill,” he wrote on Telegram.
Ukrainian leaders have already drawn parallels between the Holodomor and Russia’s current invasion.
Ukraine and more than 30 other countries recognize the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people committed by the Soviet Union, which then ruled Ukraine and sought to crush its desire for independence.
Moscow denies that the deaths were caused by a deliberate genocidal policy and says Russians and other ethnic groups also suffered from starvation.
The target of Saturday’s attack was not immediately clear, but Ukraine has warned in recent weeks that Russia would once again wage an air campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy system, as it attempted to do last year. last winter.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said nearly 200 buildings in the capital, including 77 residential ones, were left without power following the attack.
“It seems that tonight we heard the opening. The prelude to the winter season,” Serhiy Fursa, a prominent Ukrainian economist, wrote on Facebook.
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