New Kyiv air attacks commence

Nearly three hours later, the capital and its surrounding region lifted the air alert. The city’s military administration said 20 air targets had been shot down

KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) — A fresh aerial strike targeted Kyiv in the early hours of Monday, after a New Year’s weekend marked by dozens of Russian assaults that killed at least four people.

The Ukrainian capital and other cities came under fire from missiles and Iranian-made drones on Saturday, killing three people, and a new attack Sunday killed one in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.

Kyiv was once again rocked by an air raid on Monday morning, with the city’s military administration ordering residents just after 1 a.m. to retreat to “stay in shelters.”

“The air defense (system) is working... Fragments of balconies and windows in a high-rise building were damaged in Desnyanskyi district,” Serhiy Popko, head of the city’s administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Oleksii Kuleba, head of the Kyiv region military administration, said there were “waves” of attacks by Iranian-made Shahed drones.

“They are targeting critical infrastructure facilities,” he said.

Nearly three hours later, the capital and its surrounding region lifted the air alert. The city’s military administration said 20 air targets had been shot down.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported an explosion in Kyiv’s northeastern Desnyanskyi district and said emergency services were dispatched.

“An injured 19-year-old man was hospitalised in the

Desnyanskyi district of the capital,” he said. Authorities later said he was cut by the falling debris.

Russia’s New Year assaults — which targeted downtown areas of large cities — show a change in tactics, said an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Russia no longer has any military goals and is trying to kill as many civilians as possible and destroy more civilian facilities,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted.

“A war to kill.”

The attacks came as President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 11th month.

On Saturday, Russian artillery hit the village of Naddniprianske outside the city of Kherson, severely wounding a 13-year-old boy.

Then the Russian army struck the hospital where the boy was lying in intensive care, smashing the windows.

“What did the 13-year-old boy do to these inhumans that they tried to kill him twice?” governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said on messaging app Telegram.

The Russian onslaught damaged the Kherson hospital and also left the city and the surrounding settlements without electricity.

Russian forces in November withdrew from Kherson, the only regional capital held by Moscow, but have continued to batter the city.

Ukrainian governors and officials also reported one death each in Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region, in the capital Kyiv, in the southern region of Kherson and in the western city Khmelnytskyi.

Dozens of people were also wounded, they said.

Kyiv Police Chief Andriy Nebitov released a picture of the wreckage of a downed drone that featured the words “Happy New Year” in Russian.

“That is everything you need to know about the terror state and its army,” he wrote.