Kyiv, June 5 (Reuters) – Russian strategic Tu-95 bombers launch missiles into Kyiv from the Caspian Sea in the early hours of Sunday and two of the eastern districts of the Ukrainian capital were rocked by explosions, the Ukrainian air force and the mayor of the city.
At least one person was hospitalized, although no deaths were reported immediately, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said. Dark smoke rose into the sky above the Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts where the explosions resounded.
The attack targeted railway infrastructure, according to Serhiy Leshchenko, assistant to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff.
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Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had fired long-range rockets into Kyiv and destroyed T-72 tanks and armored vehicles that had been supplied to Ukraine by Eastern European countries and were being held in a building in Kiev. repair of railway wagons.
Ukraine’s air defenses destroyed a cruise missile around 6 a.m. local time after identifying incoming missiles, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
The missiles were the first to hit the capital since late April, when a Radio Liberty producer was killed in a Russian missile attack that struck the building where she lived. read more
“According to preliminary data, the (Russians) launched missiles from Tu-95 aircraft from the Caspian Sea,” the Ukrainian air force said in a statement.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has called on the West to impose more sanctions on Russia to punish it for attacks and to supply more weapons to Ukraine.
“The Kremlin is resorting to new insidious attacks. Today’s missile attacks in Kyiv have only one goal: to kill as many as possible,” he wrote.
The mayor of the historic city of Brovary, about 20 km (12 miles) from the center of Kyiv, urged people to stay inside their homes, as there were reports of the smell of soot coming from the smoke. .
Despite ongoing Russian offensives in Ukraine and widespread destruction, life in Kyiv has been relatively free of attacks in recent weeks, after Moscow turned the focus of its invasion on the east and south.
The sirens of the airstrikes regularly disrupt life in Kyiv, but in several weeks there have been no major strikes in the city.
The Darnytskyi district on the left bank of the Dnipro River stretches from the outskirts of Kyiv to the river bank, while the Dniprovskyi area north of the city lies along the river.
Oleksandr Honcharenko, mayor of Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region, reported night strikes in the city, which caused widespread but no casualties.
On Saturday, Ukrainian officials said the country’s troops had recaptured a strip of the stormed city of Sievierodonetsk in a counteroffensive against Russia. Read more
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Written by Lidia Kelly and Tom Balmforth; Edited by William Mallard and Mark Heinrich
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