Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least two people reported killed and 13 injured, and fires burning across the city.
Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.
Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows blasts in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine’s military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.
Ukraine reported the biggest ever Russian aerial attack on Tuesday night, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, Kyiv’s military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.
“Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning,” administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.
“Unfortunately, we have two dead,” he later said. “These people were killed by the Russians. This is a terrible loss”.
In Kyiv’s Podilsky district, a primary healthcare centre was “almost completely destroyed”, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.
City residents have been urged to shelter until the air raid siren is lifted, and also close the windows when they return to their homes because there is a “lot of smoke” in Kyiv.
Overnight, Ukraine’s air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.
Russia’s military has not commented on the reported latest attack.
In other developments:
- Ukraine’s emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka – close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
- The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical air defence arms
It comes after US President Donald Trump expressed growing frustration at the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was “pretty calm about this. Trump’s way of talking is generally quite harsh, the phrases he uses”.
The two leaders have been in regular contact but this has so far failed to translate into tangible steps towards a ceasefire in Ukraine – something Trump once said he would be able to achieve in a day.
Trump has been threatening sanctions on Russia since taking office in January but has so far not imposed any.
Later on Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a summit in Malaysia.
Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
