A series of explosions rang out in Kyiv on Monday as Russia targeted the city for the second time in 24 hours
\nKYIV
\nRussia fired a barrage of missiles at Kyiv on Monday sending panicked residents running for shelter in an unusual daytime attack on the Ukrainian capital following overnight strikes.
\nA series of explosions rang out in Kyiv on Monday as Russia targeted the city for the second time in 24 hours.
\nThe latest barrages hit the pro-Western country as the Ukrainian capital was still recovering from an overnight on Saturday drone attack, the biggest since Russia\u2019s invasion began in February last year.
\nAFP journalists heard at least 10 explosions from around 11:10am (local time) in Kyiv, starting just a few minutes after an air raid warning sounded.
\nAuthorities later said Ukrainian air defences had downed all the Russian missiles launched against the Kyiv region. One injured man was hospitalised, they said.
\n\u201cA total of 11 missiles were fired: \u2018Iskander-M\u2019 and \u2018Iskander-K\u2019 from a northerly direction,\u201d Ukr\u00adaine\u2019s armed forces chief Valery Zaluzhny said.
\n\u201cAll the targets were destroyed by air defences.\u201d
\nSergiy Popko, head of Kyiv\u2019s city administration, said that Russians struck in the morning when \u201cmost residents were at work and on the streets\u201d.
\n\u201cThe Russians are clearly demonstrating that they are aiming to destroy the civilian population,\u201d he said on Telegram.
\nHeavy barrage sparks panic
\nPeople running for shelter in a metro station in central Kyiv as volleys of explosions were heard.
\nA witness video showed a group of schoolchildren screaming as they ran down the street. Many residents have become used to ignoring air raid sirens but the heavy barrage prompted a panicked reaction. City authorities said 41,000 people hid in the metro.
\nDown on the platform of the Khreshchatyk metro station, people waited on the steps checking their mobile phones.
\n\u201cI saw six, seven or eight… explosions in the sky. That\u2019s why I came here with my work colleagues,\u201d said Maksym, a plumber, sitting on the steps. \u201cI\u2019m waiting for the air raid to end.\u201d \u201cEveryone is used to the night (attacks) when we sleep at home. But the daytime is something new, it has not happened in a long time,\u201d said Yevgeny, a 39-year-old programmer.
\n\u201cThey want to intimidate and scare us, so that we say this war must be stopped. That is what they are probably trying to achieve,\u201d said Volodymyr, an entrepreneur.
\nThe Kyiv city administration said air defences were at work during the air raid, which was the 16th attack on the city this month. Also, missile fragments scattered on the road in Kyiv\u2019s northern Obolonskiy district.
\n\u201cAt first, they started shooting down missiles as usual. Then one of them fell on the road, as you can see, just the tail of it. Some people said it set a car on fire,\u201d said Dmytro, a young man in a plaid shirt.
\nKyiv had been relatively spared from attacks since the beginning of the year, but has faced almost nightly aerial raids this month.
\nAuthorities said early on Monday that Kyiv had repelled another large number of overnight air strikes, with no casualties.
\nZaluzhny said \u201cup to 40 missiles\u201d and \u201caround 35 drones\u201d had been launched, almost all of which were downed.
\n\u2018Targets destroyed\u2019
\nRussia on Monday shelled a small town in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one woman, local authorities said. A 61-year-old man was also killed by shelling in the southern Kherson region.
\nA missile attack in the eastern Kharkiv region last night pounded a small settlement, wounding seven people including a pregnant woman and children aged 10 and 14, the authorities said.
\nIn the western region of Khmelnytsky, Russian forces struck a military facility overnight, officials said.
\nIn a rare admission of damage to a military installation, they said \u201cfive aircraft have been put out of action.\u201d Russia\u2019s defence ministry said its forces had attacked Ukrainian airfields and \u201call the assigned targets have been destroyed\u201d.
\nMoscow has warned the West against escalating the conflict after the United States agreed to greenlight deliveries of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
\nKyiv has been preparing an offensive although its timing and focus have been the subject of months of speculation. Ukrainian authorities have said almost nothing except that they need more weapons from the country\u2019s backers.
\nDeputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said on Monday that in the frontline hotspot of Bakhmut \u201cthe intensity of the enemy\u2019s offensive has significantly decreased\u201d as Russian mercenary group Wagner was handing over its positions to Moscow\u2019s regular troops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A series of explosions rang out in Kyiv on Monday as Russia targeted the city for the second time in 24 hours KYIV Russia fired a barrage of missiles at Kyiv on Monday sending panicked residents running for shelter in an unusual daytime attack on the Ukrainian capital following overnight strikes. A series of explosions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-334404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n