Several waves of Russian drones have targeted critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and surrounding areas, as Moscow extended its constant bombing to a second day in 2023.
By 3 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Monday, Ukraine’s air defense systems had destroyed 20 aerial objects over Kyiv, its military administration said. By then, the air raid sirens had been wailing for over four hours.
Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged in the overnight strikes, causing power and heating cuts, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Monday.
Debris from a destroyed drone hit the Desnianskiy district in northeastern Kyiv, injuring a 19-year-old man who was later taken to hospital, Klitschko said. The district, located on the left bank of the Dnieper River, is primarily a residential area and the most populated district of the capital.
The regional military command in eastern Ukraine said air defense systems destroyed nine Iranian-made Shahed drones over the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions early Monday.
It was the second consecutive night of strikes, after Kyiv was attacked on New Year’s Eve. Damage in the capital was limited to two cases of rocket debris falling in the city and damaging a car in the city center on Sunday.
Three more people were reported killed across the country, following attacks in Kherson, where a children’s hospital was also hit, in Khmelnytsky, in the west of the country, and in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.
Russia’s defense ministry said it had targeted production, storage and launch sites for Ukrainian drones, but an adviser to Zelenskiy, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the strikes focused on downtown areas of major cities and show a change in Moscow’s tactics.
“Russia no longer has any military goals and is trying to kill as many civilians as possible and destroy more civilian facilities,” he tweeted. “A war to kill.”
Sunday’s attacks came minutes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered his New Year’s address, saying he hoped 2023 would bring a successful conclusion to the fighting and peace in the country.
“We don’t know for sure what 2023 will bring us. I want to wish us all one thing: victory. And that’s the most important thing.”
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report