KYIV, Ukraine — Russian missiles struck Kyiv early on Saturday, injuring at least five people, damaging homes and commercial buildings and closing traffic on a bridge over the Dnipro River, national and city authorities said, according to reports by Reuters and The Associated Press.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram that the enemy was hitting infrastructure with ballistic missiles. Debris struck a five-storey apartment building in a western district of the capital, and the facade of another residential building was damaged.
“Explosions in the Kyiv suburbs. The enemy is hitting infrastructure with ballistic missiles,”
The city’s military administration, also writing on Telegram, first said two people were injured and a building housing a kindergarten was damaged. Authorities later put the injured at at least five. The strikes also set off new power and water outages in the capital.
Officials kept warning residents that more strikes could follow in the hours after the attack.
The attack landed hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that Russia was preparing new attacks on energy targets, bridges and other infrastructure.
Russia’s account
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces carried out a massive overnight strike on targets in Ukraine’s military-industrial sector and on energy and transport infrastructure in Kyiv and the surrounding region.
The ministry said the Northern Bridge was hit, describing it as a route used to move weapons, military equipment and vehicles for Ukraine’s armed forces. It also said the Meridian plant was hit, a plant it says produces Flamingo cruise missiles.
Kyiv region facilities were also on the ministry’s list. It said a power plant, an electricity substation and a munitions plant were damaged, that a substation in the Zhytomyr region was struck, and that a cargo vessel in the Black Sea, which it said was carrying military equipment and dual-use goods to Ukraine, was hit. Ukrainian officials did not confirm the plant or vessel claims in the reports.
Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States are due to meet on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, for talks aimed at ending the 4½-year-old war. The round would be the fourth brokered by the Trump administration, after the most recent talks in Geneva in February.
In southern Ukraine, recovery work continued in Komyshuvakha, where Russian guided bombs hit a former school turned aid distribution center on Monday. Dozens of people remain missing, and two more bodies were recovered early on Saturday, bringing the confirmed toll in that attack to 55 killed, according to The Associated Press.
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