- Written by Yaroslav Lukiev
- BBC News
image source, Military administration of the city of Kyiv
Kiev officials said that several buildings were hit by shrapnel from drones
Russia launched a massive new drone attack overnight on the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, local officials said, killing at least one person.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a man died when the wreckage of a drone fell near a petrol station. A woman was injured.
He said air defenses had shot down more than 20 drones heading for Kiev – but that a “new wave of drones” was approaching.
Russia has recently stepped up its attacks on Kiev, trying to overwhelm the capital’s defenses.
Earlier on Sunday, air raid alerts were activated in 12 regions of Ukraine, from Volyn in the northwest to Dnipropetrovsk in the southeast.
Klitschko, in a social media post, urged Kyiv residents to “stay in shelters”, warning that the night would be “difficult”.
He said that at least two high-rise buildings in different neighborhoods of the capital caught fire after being hit by shrapnel from a drone.
Emergency workers have been deployed.
In its recent attacks, Russia has used so-called kamikaze drones as well as an array of cruise and ballistic missiles.
The attacks come ahead of a widely expected Ukrainian counterattack.
On Saturday, a senior Ukrainian security official told the BBC that the country was ready for such an operation.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s powerful National Security and Defense Council, said an offensive to retake territory from President Vladimir Putin’s occupying forces could start “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or a week later”.
Ukraine had been planning a counterattack for months. But she wanted as much time as possible to train troops and receive military equipment from the Western allies.
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