At least three die in overnight Russian missile attack on Kyiv
Russia launched a predawn missile barrage on Ukraine’s capital Thursday, killing 3 people including a 9-yearold and her mother, officials said, and damaging apartment buildings, schools and a children’s hospital. It was the highest casualty toll from a single attack on Kyiv over the past month.
A 33-year-old woman died as she and others waited to enter a locked Kyiv air raid shelter, leaving her and others at the mercy of falling missile fragments, according to her husband. Officials ordered an investigation into what happened.
The latest Russian attack, using what Ukrainian officials said were short-range Iskander ground-launched missiles, coincided with events scheduled in Kyiv to celebrate International Children’s Day.
Ukrainian air defenses shot down all 10 cruise and ballistic missiles launched by the Kremlin’s forces, but falling debris caused damage and casualties on the ground, wounding 16 people, according to authorities.
Russia has kept up a steady barrage on the Ukrainian capital and other parts of the country in recent weeks as Kyiv readies what it says is a counteroffensive to push back Moscow’s troops, 15 months after their full-scale invasion. Kyiv was the target of drone and missile attacks on 17 days last month.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that the
dead included a 9-year-old girl, her mother and another woman.
UN human rights monitors said six children were killed and 34 were wounded last month alone.
Since February 2022, at least 525 children have been killed and at least 1,047 have been injured, according to the UN’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
In Moscow, meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin was chairing a meeting with families via video link to mark International Children’s Day.
Putin met with families that have many children and vowed
to maintain state subsidies and other measures to support them. When one of the participants in the meeting voiced confidence that Russia would be victorious in what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine, Putin noted that “it will be so.”
Russia has repeatedly targeted Kyiv with waves of drone and missile attacks since the start of the invasion, but attacks against the capital have significantly intensified over the past month.
While Ukraine’s air defence has become increasingly effective at intercepting Russian
drones and missiles, many Kyiv residents are anxious and tired after weeks of sleepless nights.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said the Kremlin’s forces are targeting Kyiv because it is a symbol of Ukrainian power.
“It’s a psychological attack to intimidate and demoralise Ukrainians and to show they are capable of everything,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Across Ukraine, the presidential office said on Thursday, seven civilians were killed and 27 injured over the previous 24 hours.