Russia again attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday, killing at least three people, including two children. Air raid sirens and loud bangs throughout the city woke up weary residents after a month of relentless attacks.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on messaging app Telegram 14 more people were injured. He suggested that the deaths and injuries could have been caused by debris from the air defenses that shot down incoming attacks.
The city’s military junta said the attacks appeared to have come from ground-based missile systems and that all projectiles were destroyed by air defenses. Some debris fell on a children’s clinic, and there was fire and damage in three districts of the city, according to Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration.
that is one more night that Kyiv’s 3.6 million residents have been yanked out of bed and rushed for cover, after a month of being followed by 17 attacks that hit all the time, including by drones, ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
While Kyiv has been under attack since the war’s earliest days, the speed and intensity of the attacks over the past month has irked even civilians who spend hours in bomb shelters and sleepless nights huddled in the hallways. Thursday’s strikes seem to suggest the campaign will resume in June.
According to Popko, one of the children killed on Thursday morning was about 5 or 6 years old, and the other was about 12 or 13 years old.
On Wednesday, in a speech marking International Children’s Day, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said at least 483 Ukrainian children have been killed since the start of all-out war and that others have the right to enjoy a safe environment, education and health care. care violated by the invasion of Russia.
“For 15 months, Russian aggression and terrorism have destroyed not only buildings, but also basic human rights – the basic rights of our children,” he said.
The week starts with a rare daytime attack on the capital, when rockets roared into Kyiv shortly after 11 a.m. Monday and scared schoolchildren to flee. All missiles were intercepted by air defense systems, but their fragments caused fires and other damage.
Russian forces have altered the timing of their bombardment, the combination of weapons used and the trajectory of the missiles and drones, recently allowing them to fly low along river beds and over valleys to avoid detection, Ukrainian officials said.
Marc Santora contribution report.
