Russia has deployed multiple drones overnight to attack parts of Ukraine and dozens were shot down, Ukrainian officials said, after a series of attacks through the weekend that killed three civilians on New Year’s Eve.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said 40 exploding drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight, according to air defence forces, and all of them were destroyed.
He said 22 were destroyed over the capital, three in the outlying region and 15 over neighbouring provinces.
Energy infrastructure facilities in Kyiv were damaged and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It was not immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions.
A 19-year-old man was taken to hospital with wounds, Mr Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were under way.
In the outlying Kyiv region, a “critical infrastructure object” and residential buildings were hit, governor Oleksiy Kuleba said.
Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to governor Vitali Kim, and three more in the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
A missile was also destroyed in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to Mr Reznichenko. He said energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted.
A New Year’s Eve assault killed at least three civilians across the country and wounded dozens, Ukrainian authorities reported.
Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks by Russia on Thursday targeting energy infrastructure facilities.
Russia has carried out air strikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October, increasing the suffering of Ukrainians, while its ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance.
