Rescuers at work at the site of a missile strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, January 2, 2024, after a third night of Russian attacks in retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Bolgorod on Saturday. Service said. Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE
Jan. 2 (UPI) — At least four people were killed and more than 60 were injured in and around the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv after major aerial bombardment overnight by Russian forces for the third day in a row.
In the capital, Kyiv, a woman died and 27 people were taken to hospital after being hurt in a blaze in a high-rise building struck by a cruise missile early Tuesday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on social media.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said rescuers evacuated more than 130 people from the building in Solomyansk district and tackled at least seven other blazes in the Obolonskyi, Pecherskyi, Podilskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Desnyanskyi districts of the city.
Klitschko said a warehouse caught fire in Obolonskyi, a high-rise building was damaged in Pecherskyi and a supermarket was set ablaze in Desnyanskyi.
Power and water were knocked out to facilities and residential buildings in several districts.
Areas around Kyiv were also targeted with two people killed in a fire in an apartment building in Fastiv, 47 miles southwest of the capital, the State Emergency Service said. Also hit were Boryspilsky, Bucha and Vyshneve where five apartment buildings and more than 40 cars were damaged, injuring at least seven people.
In Kharkiv in the east of the country, at least one person, a 91-year-old woman, was killed and 44 were injured after direct hits north of the center of the city inflicted widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, said regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov.
Officials said the main attack on Kyiv was preceded by a wave of about 15 Shahed “kamikaze” attack drones all of which were destroyed by air defenses.
That was followed by the unleashing of 99 cruise and ballistic missiles launched from strategic bombers and fighter aircraft, according to Kyiv military administration head Serhii Popko.
However, air defenses shot down more than 60 of the cruise missiles and about 10 of the ballistic missiles.
Tuesday’s attacks followed waves of attacks overnight Saturday and New Year’s Eve by missiles and drones launched by Russia in retaliation for a Ukrainian rocket and missile assault Saturday on the Russian city of Belgorod that killed at least 22 people and injured more than 100.
Ukraine‘s deadliest assault against mainland Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 was in turn in retaliation for a massive Russian aerial attack all across Ukraine in the early hours of Friday that killed 39 people and injured scores more.