Russian attacks, including some with “suicide” drones, left at least eight dead in Ukraine on Monday – four in the capital – and damaged electrical installations in several regions of the country, a week after a wave of massive bombings.
“Today, after the [Russian] attack on a residential building in kyiv, four people were killed,” Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said on Telegram. “Among [the deceased people] is a young family expecting a baby,” he added.
According to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, the deceased woman was six months pregnant.
Russia attacked the center of the capital during the morning rush hour with drones on Monday and bombed other cities across the country, the second widespread attacks in a week as its forces suffer battlefield setbacks.
Soldiers fired into the air trying to shoot down the drones after explosions rocked central kyiv. Residents fled for shelter. In the sky, an anti-aircraft rocket was seen followed by an explosion and orange flames.
Ukraine said the strikes were carried out by Iranian-made “suicide drones,” which fly to their target and detonate.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed it had carried out a “massive” attack on military targets and energy infrastructure across Ukraine, using high-precision weapons.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi said later that other cities had also been killed in Monday’s attacks.
A drone strike also hit the Everi sea terminal in the southern city of Mykolaiv late on Sunday, according to authorities, damaging sunflower oil storage tanks.
“This is a totally civilian facility. There are no military,” said Andriy, 47, a senior manager who did not want to give his last name.
The attacks come exactly a week after Russia unleashed the largest aerial bombardment on kyiv and other Ukrainian cities since the start of the war, also during the morning rush hour.
Call for sanctions against Iran
kyiv’s Defense Ministry said that “in the last 13 hours” the Ukrainians had shot down 37 Iranian Shahed-136 drones and three Russian-launched cruise missiles.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, called on Twitter for more sanctions to be imposed against Iran “for having supplied drones to Russia.”
Iran denies that it is supplying weapons to Moscow and insisted again on Monday that “it has not exported weapons to any of the parties to the conflict,” according to Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
After the attacks, the chief of staff of the Ukrainian presidency, Andriy Yermak, indicated that the country needed “more anti-aircraft defense systems as soon as possible.”
“The Russians think this is going to help them but it just shows their desperation,” he wrote.
Yermak also welcomed the increase in military aid from the European Union (EU) to Ukraine and the launch of a training mission for his country’s soldiers.
At a meeting of European foreign ministers in Luxembourg, the European bloc approved a training mission on its territory for 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers and to provide another 500 million euros for weapons to kyiv.
