Kyiv: Air raid sirens blared across the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, as Russia kept pounding the city with fresh drone attacks, the second night in a row, reported Al Jazeera. Monday’s early morning attack comes after a New Year assault by Russia that saw Kyiv and other cities under fire from missiles and Iranian-made drones.
The drone attacks early on Monday targeted critical infrastructure in Kyiv and the surrounding region, according to Ukrainian officials, reported Al Jazeera. ‘It is loud in the region and in the capital: night drone attacks’, said Oleksiy Kuleba, the governor of the Kyiv region. ‘Russians launched several waves of (Iranian-made) Shahed drones. Targeting critical infrastructure facilities’, he wrote on the Telegram messaging application. ‘Our air defence forces are working on the targets’, he added. ‘The main thing now is to stay calm and stay in shelters until the alarm is off’.
The attacks followed a barrage of Russian missiles and drones that hit Kyiv and other cities on New Year’s Eve and early on New Year’s Day. At least three people were killed in the attacks in Kyiv and other cities on Saturday, while another person died in an attack in the southern region of Zaporizhia, reported Al Jazeera. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least one person was wounded in Monday’s assault after debris from a destroyed drone damaged a building in the city’s northeastern Desniansky district. The victim was a 19-year-old man, he said on Telegram.
By 3 am local time on Monday (01:00 GMT), Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed 16 air objects above Kyiv, the city’s military administration said. Air raid sirens had been wailing by that time for more than three hours, reported Al Jazeera. Ukraine’s regional military command in the country’s east said air defence systems destroyed nine Iranian-made Shahed drones over the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions by the early hours of Monday.
Meanwhile, in a video address on Sunday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised his citizens’ ‘sense of unity, of authenticity, of life itself’. Russia, he said, ‘will not take away a single year from Ukraine. They will not take away our independence. We will not give them anything’. ‘Drones, missiles, everything else will not help them’, he said of the Russians. ‘Because we stand united. They are united only by fear’. Ukrainian forces in the air and on the ground shot down 45 Iranian-made explosive drones fired by Russia on Saturday night and before dawn on Sunday, Zelenskyy said. Iran denies providing Russia with the weapons, reported Al Jazeera.
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