Two killed in biggest Russian air strike on Ukrainian capital for months
- Kyiv
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[August 30, 2023]
By Yurii Kovalenko and Vladyslav Sodel
KYIV (Reuters) -Russia's largest air strike on Kyiv since spring killed
two people early on Wednesday, with the debris of downed missiles
falling on buildings, a park and a school, Ukrainian officials said.
Reuters captured footage of a fireball that fell out of the night sky
into a part of the Ukrainian capital close to a supermarket, detonating
in a huge explosion that bathed nearby residential tower blocks in
light.
Three people were wounded in the overnight strike on Kyiv, and combat
drones attacked infrastructure in the central region of Zhytomyr, where
an unidentified facility and railway tracks were damaged and trains were
delayed, they said.
"The blast wave broke all the windows, the entry doors are broken too.
We were terribly scared," said Liudmyla Savchuk, a 57-year-old teacher
whose apartment in northwestern Kyiv was damaged.
"Then there was another explosion in a couple of seconds, 20 or 30
seconds. We're cleaning everything now," she said, showing Reuters a
piece of debris that had flown through a window.
Ukrainian air defenses shot down all 28 incoming missiles and 15 of the
16 drones in the overnight attack, which also targeted the Black Sea
region of Odesa, said General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of
Ukraine's armed forces.
Russia did not immediately comment on the overnight air strike, but
Moscow said it had it foiled a Ukrainian drone attack on western Russia.
"MASSIVE ATTACK"
Russia has conducted regular, but smaller, air strikes on Kyiv
throughout the summer, and hit the capital with large-scale aerial
attacks in May.
The latest attack began with groups of drones heading towards Kyiv from
different directions and was followed by a salvo of missiles launched by
Tu-95 strategic bombers.
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An explosion is seen in the sky over the
city during a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on
Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine August 30, 2023. REUTERS/Vladyslav Sodel
It was not immediately clear what had been hit by the single drone
that was not shot down.
"Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring. The
enemy launched a massive, combined attack using drones and
missiles," Serhiy Popko, the head of the city's military
administration said on the Telegram messaging app.
"All in all, the air defense forces destroyed more than 20 enemy
targets."
The bodies of two people were found in a non-residential building,
mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.
At around 4.00 a.m. (0100 GMT), a burning lump of missile debris
flew through the night sky over southwestern Kyiv's outskirts and
landed nearby, a Reuters witness said.
Several buildings were damaged by debris, and officials in the Kyiv
region said six private houses were damaged by missile fragments and
several people were injured.
"Humans don't do such things. There are no military objects here,
nothing – just an apartment block... The missiles fell in the park,"
said Roman Feshchenko, 76, a resident in the northwest of Kyiv, one
of four places where debris came down.
The general prosecutor's office said separately an 82-year-old woman
had been killed overnight by Russian shelling in her home in the
village of Svarkove in the northern region of Sumy.
(Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Gleb Garanich; Writing
by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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