Russia has launched dozens of missiles and drones towards Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, injuring at least five people, amid growing concern about safety at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest,
Al Jazeera reports.
Ukraine’s top military command said it destroyed all 35 Iranian-made Shahed drones that were launched during the night, adding that Russia had also launched dozens of missiles.
“Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded civilians, high-rise buildings, private homes and other civilian infrastructure were damaged,” the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its daily update.
The latest air assault comes as Moscow prepares to celebrate Victory Day, a major Russian holiday that marks the anniversary of its defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II and usually includes a military parade through Red Square.
At least five people were injured due to the air attacks on the capital, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, while Russian missiles left an Odesa warehouse packed with food on fire. Blasts were reported in several other Ukrainian regions.
Russia also intensified shelling of ruined Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s top general in charge of the city’s defence, as it hopes to lock in gains ahead of the May 9 holiday. Once known as a salt-mining town, Bakhmut is seen by the Russians as a key target in order to secure its eastern advance.
Witnesses told the Reuters news agency that they had heard numerous explosions in Kyiv as local officials said air defence systems were repelling the attacks.
Three people were injured in explosions in Kyiv’s Solomyanskyi district, and two others were injured when drone wreckage fell onto the Sviatoshyn district, both west of the capital’s centre, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram messaging channel.
Kyiv’s military administration said that in the city’s central Shevchenkivskyi district, drone debris seemed to have hit a two-storey building, causing damage, and had also fallen onto a runway of the Zhuliany airport, one of the two passenger airports of the Ukrainian capital.
