Ukrainian air defenses shot down more than 20 Russian drones targeting the capital Kiev this morning, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday, also reporting that one was injured by falling debris.
“The drones entered the capital in groups and from different directions. The air defense forces managed to destroy more than twenty enemy drones”Kiev’s military government said on the messaging platform Telegram.
The exact number of drones shot down will be announced later, the government added, without specifying whether all the drones were destroyed in flight or if some hit the city.
Falling debris from crashed drones damaged cars, cables from Kiev’s trams and an apartment, injuring one person but not in a life-threatening condition, the government said.
A journalist from the France-Press news agency in Kiev heard at least a dozen explosions overnight.
The head of the capital’s military administration, Sergey Popko, said the wreckage of the crashed unmanned aerial vehicles fell in the Sviatoshynskyi, Podilskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts.
In the Shevchenkivskyi district of central Kiev, they set a fire in a residential building that was extinguished by the owners, without causing any casualties, Popko said on Telegram.
In the Sviatoshynskyi district, west of the capital, debris caused a fire in the Sovky Park, one of the city’s best-known public gardens, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
In the Podilskyi district of central Kiev, debris fell into an open space and doctors who arrived on the scene treated a person suffering from an attack of “acute stress”, Klitschko said.
Also on Telegram, the mayor said more burning debris fell on a road in the central Solomyanskyi district.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have intensified drone strikes, especially against the cities of Izmail and Reni, in Odessa province, home to the Danube river ports that Ukraine has used to export grains.
In late August, Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Vadim Skibitski stated that Russian forces are conducting reconnaissance of Ukrainian infrastructure and that they could begin a series of massive missile and drone attacks in late September or into September. October.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the worst security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: DN
