KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities said they thwarted a Russian attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region on Wednesday as their air defense system destroyed 13 explosive-laden drones, though wreckage damaged five buildings, without causing casualties.
The attempted strikes underscored how vulnerable Ukraine’s capital remains to regular Russian attacks that have devastated infrastructure and population centers in recent weeks, mainly in the east and south of the country. But they also pointed to Ukraine’s claims that the effectiveness of intercepting drones and missiles would increase, and the possibility of US Patriot missiles further bolstering defenses.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video that “terrorists” fired 13 Iranian-made drones, and all of them were intercepted. These drones are part of the firepower – along with rockets, missiles, mortars and artillery – that Russia uses to target power plants, waterworks and other utility equipment.
The snow-capped capital remained largely calm after the foiled attack, which came at daybreak. At the start of the working day, the authorities sounded the green light.
Kyiv city administration chief Serhii Popko wrote on Telegram that the attempted strikes came in two waves. Debris from the intercepted drones damaged an administrative building and four residential buildings, he said.
An explosion left the three-story tax office building in the central Shevchenkyvskyi district with a gaping hole in the roof and blew out the windows of parked cars and a nearby building.
Cleanup crews were on site quickly removing rubble and rolling out plastic sheeting to cover windows blown out by freezing temperatures. A man, unfazed, pushed his son on a swing at a nearby playground as crews worked.
Another relative, Anton Rudikov, said his family was sleeping when they heard an explosion and smashed windows. “Thank God the children weren’t affected” beyond their fear, said Rudkov, whose daughters are 13 and 18. But why Russia would attack his neighborhood puzzled him.
“I didn’t do anything wrong to them, but it hit my house. From where? I don’t understand why,” he said.
Residents told Associated Press reporters they saw fragments of a drone bearing the words “For Ryazan.” The Kremlin says Ukraine was responsible for a cross-border attack last week on a military base in Russia’s western Ryazan region.
Ukrainian authorities have trumpeted their ability to bring down Russian weapons. But strikes in some areas continue to cause death and devastation, especially near the front lines in the east and south. In the southern city of Odessa, drone strikes temporarily knocked out electricity last week. Kyiv suffered relatively little damage.
More air defense help was apparently on the way. US officials said on Tuesday that the United States was close to approving the dispatch of a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, agreeing to an urgent Ukrainian request. The Patriot is believed to be the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the West has provided to Ukraine to help repel Russian air attacks since the Russian invasion on February 24.
The Russian Embassy in Washington said a delivery of Patriot missiles would be “another provocative step by the administration, which could have unpredictable consequences.” He added that it would cause “colossal damage not only to Russian-US relations, but create additional risks for global security.”
US officials said last week that Moscow was looking to Iran to resupply its military with drones and surface-to-surface missiles.
Damage from Russian strikes cut off electricity, heat and water supplies as winter approached. Still, the UN migration agency said more than 5 million people displaced inside or outside Ukraine since Russia’s invasion have returned. The International Organization for Migration said a Nov. 25-Dec. 5 A telephone survey of 2,002 respondents in Ukraine revealed that only 7% were considering leaving.
Providing further estimates, Ukraine’s human rights chief said on Wednesday that almost a fifth of the country’s pre-war population had sought refuge abroad during the war. Dmytro Lubinets said that 7.9 million Ukrainian citizens left the country and 4.9 million were internally displaced. Lubinets did not specify how many Ukrainian refugees have returned.
Prisoners of war were also on the move. Zelenskyy’s bureau chief Andriy Yermak said 64 Ukrainian soldiers and one US national living in Ukraine were freed in the latest prisoner exchange with Russia. In a Telegram post, he identified the “American citizen who helped our people” as Suedi Murekezi. Yermak did not give details.
What role – if any – Murekezi was serving in Ukraine was not immediately clear. A US official speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the conflict in Ukraine confirmed that Murekezi had been released. The official said Murekezi lived in or near Kherson and that Russian forces detained him. A group claiming to have helped save him, Project Dynamo, said Murekezi was a US Air Force veteran whom Russian forces arrested in June. Florida-based group Project DYNAMO – an international non-profit search, rescue and aid organization – said he was released on October 28 and subsequently lived in Donetsk.
In other developments Wednesday:
— Ukrainian authorities said they found evidence that children were tortured during the Russian occupation. Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights chief, said “child torture chambers” accused of resisting Russian forces have been discovered in recaptured areas of northeastern and southern Ukraine. Lubinets said he saw two torture sites in Balakliya, in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, and spoke with a boy who said he was detained for 90 days and cut with a knife, burned and subjected to beatings. simulated executions.
– Ukraine’s presidential office said Russian forces struck ten regions in central and southeastern Ukraine, destroying two university buildings in Kramatorsk. He said high-rise apartment buildings, a hospital and a bus station were also damaged. Russian forces also shelled eight towns and villages in the southern Kherson region, the presidential office reported.
— The International Atomic Energy Agency said it would send nuclear safety and security experts to Ukrainian nuclear power plants to prevent a nuclear accident. The UN nuclear watchdog has already deployed a permanent mission to Russia’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, has faced repeated bombardments. Its six reactors have been shut down for months. Three other nuclear power plants are located on Ukrainian territory, as is the decommissioned Chernobyl power plant.
___
Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, and Colleen Long in Washington contributed.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Comments are closed.