Ukrainian authorities said on Monday that 26 people were injured in overnight Russian strikes on the city of Kharkiv and the capital Kyiv, while the Ukrainian air force said it had intercepted 112 of the 165 drones launched by Russia overnight.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said a Russian guided aerial bomb hit a residential building in the city, injuring 22 people, including children. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is in the north-east of the country and is frequently targeted by Russian attacks. In Kyiv, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service said four people were injured during the overnight strikes.
Casualties and damage from previous raids in Kyiv
The city authorities said a Russian drone struck a petrol station in the capital, as a wave of air attacks targeted various parts of Ukraine. The strikes came a day after Russian raids killed eight people in several areas, including Kyiv.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ivan Vyhovskyi announced the toll on Sunday afternoon, saying one of the strikes hit a children’s centre in the northern city of Sumy, killing three people, including a 16-year-old girl. In the capital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said three people injured in Sunday’s attacks were taken to hospital. Kyiv City Council said 16 sites were damaged, including 12 homes in the capital’s suburbs, as well as a warehouse and a production facility.
Kyiv City Council said in a statement: “The enemy continues to attack Kyiv without pause using attack drones.” The attacks come as Russia steps up its operations against the Ukrainian capital during the fifth year of the war, while Ukraine prepares for another winter amid continuing fighting.
Russia says it targeted data centres in Kyiv
In response, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Sunday that it had struck a data centre belonging to Kyivstar in Kyiv, along with another centre belonging to Omega Telecom. The ministry said the two companies provide services to the Ukrainian army and that the strikes were aimed at disrupting internet service in the country. Russia’s Defence Ministry published a photograph of a drone bearing the phrase “digital detox”, meaning the removal of digital technology toxins.
The attacks came a day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the United Nations General Assembly that Moscow intended to continue its military campaign “until the end”, and after Russia pledged to achieve its war aims “whatever the circumstances”.
Russia’s Defence Ministry also said its forces had captured a border village in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine, where Moscow controls a number of areas. Russia has not announced the annexation of Kharkiv, unlike the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, but it has attacked the region and seized territory there since the start of the war. The Kremlin reiterated its determination to take control of the rest of eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyy outlines scale of attacks over a week
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had launched more than 2,200 attack drones at Ukraine over the past week, along with about 1,650 aerial bombs and 38 missiles of various types, noting that a large number of them were ballistic missiles.
Russia knows how to send the encouraging diplomatic signals that the world simply wants to hear, and it also knows how to send such signals in order to delay the tough steps the world might take in response to the war
The Ukrainian president added that his country was awaiting effective decisions from the international community and strong pressure from its partners, so that Moscow would realise that manipulating diplomacy “will not allow it to continue gaining more and more time for war and terrorism”.
US-led talks to end the war, which began in 2022, have made little progress, while the United Nations has warned that the number of civilian deaths is rising.
