Multiple explosions hit Kyiv as Russia attacks Ukrainian capital for first time in weeks
Smouldering buildings are a reminder that Kyiv is still a city at war, reports ITV News Correspondent Lucy Watson from the Ukrainian capital
A barrage of Russian missiles shook parts of Kyiv early on Sunday morning, in the first assault on Ukraine's capital for weeks.
Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said the missiles hit unspecified “infrastructure” targets in the Darnytski and Dniprovski districts of the city, with one person reported to be hospitalised with injuries.
The Russian Defence Ministry said high-precision, long-range air-launched missiles were used.
It said the strikes on the outskirts of Kyiv destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by Eastern European countries and other armoured vehicles located in buildings of a train repair business.
Head of the Ukrainian railway Oleksandr Kamyshin confirmed that four missiles had smashed into a rail car repair facility in the eastern area of the capital.
Russia took aim on Sunday at Western military supplies for Ukraine and said it launched airstrikes on Kyiv that it claimed destroyed tanks donated from abroad.
The Ukrainian railway authority said no military equipment had been stored at the rail repair facility, with Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s office, telling reporters: “There were no tanks, and you can just be witness to this.”
However, a government adviser said on national TV that military infrastructure also was targeted.
Vladimir Putin subsequently warned in a television interview that any Western deliveries of longer-range rocket systems would cause Moscow to “draw appropriate conclusions and use our means of destruction, which we have plenty of, in order to strike at those objects that we haven't yet struck.”
“All this fuss around additional deliveries of weapons, in my opinion, has only one goal: to drag out the armed conflict as much as possible,” Putin said.
Columns of black smoke could be seen above the city of Kyiv as emergency services tackled the aftermath of the blasts.
A resident of an apartment overlooking the area with the charred warehouse said she’d been awakened by loud explosions in the early morning.
She said the site had been targeted before but without causing such damage.
Kyiv's Darnytskyi district on the the Dnipro River runs from the outskirts of the city to the river's shores, while the Dniprovskyi district in the capital's north lies along the river.
No one was reported to have died from the missile strikes, but the assault was significant as the Ukrainian capital has been largely spared in recent months as Moscow focuses assaults in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said that “airstrikes by Ka-52 helicopters were carried out in the areas of Girske and Myrna Dolyna, by Su-25 aircraft - on Ustynivka,” damaging 13 houses in Girske. Another airstrike was reported in the eastern city of Kramatorsk by its mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko.
On Sunday morning, Ukraine’s General Staff accused Russian forces of using phosphorus munitions in the Kharkiv region.
Despite these continuing Russian attacks, Ukrainian soldiers have been successful in halting enemy advances in many contested areas.
In its latest intelligence update, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) says Ukraine has counterattacked in the key factory city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, “blunting the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained through concentrating combat units and firepower”.
On Saturday, Luhansk's governor said Ukraine controls a significant chunk of the city after reclaiming territory they had lost - but were awaiting vital precision weapons donated by Western allies.
Ukraine's General Staff said on Sunday that Russian forces continue assault operations in Sievierodonetsk in the eastern Luhansk region, one of two key cities left to be captured there.
Russian troops currently control the eastern part of the city, and are said to be focusing on encircling Ukrainian forces in the area and “blocking off main logistical routes.”
Other key developments in the war in Ukraine:
France's President Emmanuel Macron's suggestion that Ukraine and the West should try and avoid humiliating Russia in the war drew anger from Kyiv
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the West that Russia would strike new targets if the US began supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles, according to reports
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian artillery struck an early 17th century Ukrainian Orthodox monastery in the Donetsk region on Saturday
Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power operator Energoatom said on Sunday morning that a Russian cruise missile flew “critically low” over a major nuclear power plant
A Ukrainian presidential adviser urged European nations to respond with “more sanctions, more weapons” to Sunday’s missile attacks
Ukrainian authorities said Ukraine and Russia had exchanged bodies of killed troops this week, in the first officially confirmed swap
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