Ukraine reports ‘most important’ drone attack on Kyiv since invasion

KYIV – Russia unleashed the “most important” assault by drones on Kyiv overnight from Saturday to Sunday since the start of the invasion,

but nearly all were destroyed,

the military authorities said.

Forty of the 54 drones launched targeted Ukraine’s capital, killing two people and wounding three.

“In total a record number of explosive drones launched were counted: 54!” Ukraine’s air force said in a Telegram post on Sunday.

“It’s the most important drone attack against the capital since the start of the invasion” in February 2022, the regional military administration said on Telegram.

The attack “took place over several waves and the air raid alert lasted more than five hours”, it said. “According to preliminary reports, more than 40 Russian drones were destroyed by air defence” systems over Kyiv, it added.

It said that with most of the drones downed, debris fell on a seven-storey building in the capital’s Golosiivskii district, killing one person and wounding another.

A fire broke out in a warehouse zone, sending flames shooting 1km into the sky and also injuring one person, the administration said.

“The emergency services are at all the sites,” the regional authorities said.

Near a petrol station in the Solomianskii area, a 41-year-old man died and a 35-year-old woman was wounded and hospitalised, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

‘Massive’ assault

It was the 14th drone attack on Ukraine’s capital by Russia in May, the authorities said, noting an unprecedented number in a single month after Kyiv was relatively spared at the start of the year.

The mayor described the assault as “massive”, with drones “arriving from several directions at once”.

Sunday was to be celebrated as the capital’s special day, prompting the authorities to make an ironic statement: “Today the enemy decided to ‘congratulate’ the population on Kyiv Day with the help of their killer drones.”

The 54 attack drones were launched “from the regions of Briansk and Krasnodar” in Russia, said the air force, adding that 52 were destroyed.

Moscow was targeting “military installations and critical infrastructure in the centre of the country and, in particular, the Kyiv region”, it said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his country’s air defence forces and thanked rescuers.

“Every time you shoot down enemy drones and missiles, lives are saved... you are heroes!” he told his air defence forces on Sunday.

As the drone war rages, Russia has over the past few weeks seen its own territory attacked as well, blaming Kyiv for dozens of artillery, mortar and drone strikes on the southern Belgorod region.

The reports of drone attacks and sabotage raids in Russian regions bordering Ukraine come at a time when

Kyiv says it is finalising plans for a major counter-offensive

to recover lost territory.

These include the Crimea peninsula, which was occupied by Moscow’s forces in 2014.

But the drones can also strike hundreds of kilometres inside Russia. On Saturday, a building from where an energy pipeline is administered was damaged by two drones in western Russia, Governor Mikhail Vedernikov said.

A drone also hit an oil operation in the Tver region, north-west of Moscow, according to Baza, a Russian media outlet with sources in the secret services.

The past week also saw an unprecedented

two-day incursion from Ukraine claimed by two anti-Kremlin groups,

with Russia using its air force and artillery to push back the fighters.

Russia’s Defence Ministry has vowed an “extremely harsh” response to any further attacks on Russian soil.

Moscow has blamed Kyiv – and its Western supporters – for the escalating number of attacks and sabotage operations, including the

most spectacular against the Kremlin on May 3.

Ukraine has denied involvement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday said Western nations were “playing with fire” by agreeing to supply Ukraine

with advanced US F-16 fighter jets.

It was “an unacceptable escalation” of the conflict, Mr Lavrov said in an excerpt from a Russian TV interview posted on social media, denouncing an attempt to “weaken Russia” by “Washington, London and their satellites” in the European Union. AFP