Russia launches missiles on Kyiv, other cities

Russia, on Thursday, launched new missile attacks on Ukraine, hitting infrastructure, damaging residential and commercial buildings, and injuring at least 11 people in different parts of the country, officials have said.

It was the second series of Russian missile attacks so far this month and air alerts lasted for more than two hours across the country.

Russian forces, according to reports, targeted seven Ukrainian regions, including the capital Kyiv, and the cities of Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Lviv, the Ukrainian military said.

Ukrainian air defences shot down 13 out of 26 Russian-launched missiles, the air force said. This was a lower success rate than usual, reflecting the fact that the strength of air defences varies across regions.

Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration, said all missiles targeting the capital had been shot down and no major damage was reported.

Officials in the nearby Kyiv region said seven private houses and cars were damaged by the missile debris.

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However, in Lviv, near Ukraine’s border with Poland, an energy infrastructure facility was hit, causing a fire, said regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyi. Three people were injured, while 18 houses, two schools and a kindergarten were damaged.

The energy ministry also said that the Lviv strike resulted in significant damage to several facilities of an electricity distributing company.

But the latest missile attacks had no critical impact on the work of energy facilities elsewhere, the ministry added.

Infrastructure was also hit in the Khmelnytskyi region of western Ukraine and in the cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, regional officials said.

Two people were reported injured in Khmelnytskyi region, and six in Zaporizhzhia, officials said.

Residential houses, a shop, and a school were also damaged in Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian officials have said the Russian forces are trying to repeat attacks of the previous winter when Ukraine’s power sector suffered serious damage, resulting in long blackouts for millions of people.