Russian forces have unleashed a major attack on Ukraine in the early hours today, with multiple ballistic missiles targeting the capital Kyiv. At least five people were killed and 23 have been injured in the strikes, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said, as witnesses reported more than a dozen explosions. Poland said it was activating a range of defensive measures in response to the strikes unfolding across the border, describing them as "preventive military aviation operations".
A children’s hospital in Kyiv was struck in the attack, Klitschko said, while people were trapped in one destroyed residential building and fires broke out in multiple locations. The attack comes hours after president Vladimir Putin admitted that Ukrainian attacks were causing Russia harm, in statements made on Wednesday. "Of course, such attacks have not caused, and could not cause, critical consequences.
However, they do inflict damage; this is obvious, and we fully understand and acknowledge it," he told a conference of ministers and business leaders on the economy. Ukraine has upped its long-range attacks on critical energy infrastructure over the last few months. Electricity was temporarily shut off this morning in Sevastopol, the biggest city in Russian-annexed Crimea, according to the Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev.
The outage, which he said was necessary to help with an overload on power grids outside of the area and prevent a wider blackout, was scheduled to last for a few hours. A drone has crashed into Romanian national territory during a Russian attack on neighbouring Ukraine, the Romanian defence ministry said this morning. The drone crashed into an uninhabited area of the Romanian county of Tulcea, the ministry said.
Poland has launched preventive military aviation operations to protect its airspace amid Russian strikes on Ukraine in the early hours today, the Polish army said in a post on X. Russia launched ballistic missiles on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in the early hours today, killing at least five people. The attack has damaged buildings and left parts of the Ukrainian capital without power.
A fire broke out after Russia attacked the upper floors of a nine-story residential building, Klitschko said, and people were trapped in another place as Moscow hit non-residential and apartment facilities, warehouses and a children's hospital. A witness reported hearing more than a dozen explosions. In the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital, another person was killed, a local official said separately on Telegram.
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