Kyiv, Ukraine –
Waves of suicide drones laden with explosives hit Ukraine’s capital on Monday, setting buildings on fire and blowing a hole in one. People rushed for shelter or tried to shoot down the kamikazes.
The concentrated use of drones was the second bombing in as many weeks, after months in which airstrikes had become a rarity in central Kyiv. The assault sowed terror and frayed nerves as explosions rocked the city. Energy installations were affected. A drone largely collapsed a residential building, killing four people, authorities said.
Heavy, sustained bursts of gunfire rang out as Iranian-made Shahed drones buzzed overhead, apparently from soldiers trying to destroy them. Others headed for cover, nervously looking up at the sky. But Ukraine has become sorely accustomed to the attacks nearly eight months after the Russian invasion, and life in the city resumed as rescuers picked up the rubble.
Previous Russian airstrikes on Kyiv were mostly missiles. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Monday’s bombing came in successive waves of 28 drones, in what many fear could become a more common mode of attack as Russia tries to avoid depleting its stockpiles of long-range precision missiles.
Five drones went down in Kyiv, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said. In the Kyiv region, at least 13 were shot down, all flying from the south, said Yurii Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air force.
A strike appeared to target the city’s heating network and hit an operations center. Another slammed into a four-story residential building, opening a gaping hole and collapsing at least three apartments on top of each other. Four bodies were recovered, including those of a woman who was 6 months pregnant and her husband, Klitschko said. An elderly woman and another man also died there.
An Associated Press photographer caught one of the drones on camera, its triangle-shaped wing and pointed warhead clearly visible against the blue sky.
“All night and all morning, the enemy is terrorizing the civilian population,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post. “Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine.”
“The enemy may attack our cities, but he will not be able to break us,” he wrote.
Andrii Yermak, head of the presidential office, posted on social media that Shahed drones were used.
Zelenskyy, citing Ukrainian intelligence services, has previously alleged that Russia has ordered 2,400 drones from Iran. Russia has renamed them Geran-2 drones, which means “geranium” in Russian. A photo of the wreckage from one of Monday’s strikes, released by Klitschko, showed the word Geran-2 emblazoned on a broken tail fin.
Iran has previously denied providing arms to Russia, although the head of its Revolutionary Guard has boasted of supplying weapons to major world powers, without elaborating.
The drones contain an explosive charge and can hover over targets before diving into them. His explosions woke people up. Among them, Snizhana Kutrakova, 42, who lives near one of the strikes.
“I’m full of rage,” she said. “Full of rage and hatred.”
The Russian military said it used “high-precision long-range aerial and maritime weapons” to attack Ukraine’s military and energy facilities. They hit “all assigned targets,” Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for European Union sanctions on Iran for supplying drones to Russia. He reiterated Ukraine’s need for air defenses and munitions, saying he had addressed a meeting of EU counterparts from a bomb shelter as air raid sirens wailed.
The 27-nation bloc on Monday approved a military training program in Europe for thousands of Ukrainian troops and is earmarking about 500 million euros ($486 million) in additional funds to help buy arms for Ukraine.
Iranian-made drones have been used elsewhere in Ukraine in recent weeks against urban centers and infrastructure, including power plants. At just $20,000 each, the Shahed is just a fraction of the cost of high-tech missiles and conventional aircraft. The Kalibr cruise missile that Russia has used extensively in Ukraine costs the Russian military around $1 million each.
Drone swarms also challenge Ukraine’s air defenses. Western nations have promised systems that can shoot down drones, but much of that weaponry has yet to reach Ukraine and, in some cases, may be months away.
“The challenges are serious because the air defense forces and means are the same as they were at the beginning of the war,” said Ihnat, the air force spokesman. Some air defense weapons supplied by the West can only be used during daylight hours when targets are visible, he added.
Russian forces also attacked energy infrastructure elsewhere on Monday, apparently seeking to increase pressure on the Kyiv government after earlier attacks cut power supplies.
Shmyhal, the prime minister, said hundreds of settlements were without power after missile attacks on critical infrastructure in Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions.
Ukraine’s nuclear operator said Russian airstrikes again cut power to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the most worrisome flashpoints of the Russian invasion.
The nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, needs power for critical safety systems. When the bombing cuts its power supply lines, the plant is forced to resort to diesel generators, a temporary shutdown.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday there was no need for more widespread attacks against Ukraine, following a barrage of strikes earlier in the week that he said were in retaliation for the bombing of a bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula occupied by Russia from Ukraine with Russia.
However, Putin also said that seven of the 29 targets designated after the attack on the bridge were not hit “as the Ministry of Defense had planned”, so Moscow’s forces will continue to target them. He did not specify the goals.
After months in which strikes in central Kyiv were infrequent, last week’s attacks put the country and its capital on edge again.
Monday’s strike in Kyiv came amid intensified fighting in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as a continued Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south near Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Zelenskyy said on Sunday that there was heavy fighting around the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region.
The Donetsk and Luhansk regions make up the industrial east known as Donbas, and were two of four regions annexed by Russia in September in defiance of international law.
In the south, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that it had shot down nine drones over the Mykolaiv region and six more over the Odesa region. The governor of the eastern Kharkiv region said overnight attacks on a city and villages killed one woman and wounded four others.