Kyiv attacked with missiles after Ukraine destroys two Russian ships in Crimea – live

Two women have been hurt and a three-storey building badly damaged in a Russian missile attack that saw missile debris fall in three other districts of Kyiv, officials said.

A string of explosions rang out across the Ukrainian capital on Monday morning and a Reuters reporter saw a column of smoke rising in the east of the city.

“In the [central] Pechersk district, a multi-story non-residential building was damaged,” the city’s military administration wrote on the Telegram messenger. It had described the building as residential in an earlier statement.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people were injured.

Debris also came down in the Solomyansky, Holosiyvsky and Dnipro districts, the administration said.

The Ukrainian Air Force shot down two ballistic missiles over the capital Kyiv in Russia’s Monday morning attack, its commander said on Telegram messenger.

He added that missiles had been launched from the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s top aide has compared Vladimir Putin and Russia to ISIS.

Andriy Yermak posted on Telegram on Monday morning: “Putin and Russia are terrorists. They = ISIS.”

The comments come as US Ambassador Bridget Brink said on the X social network that Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with hypersonic missiles on Monday morning.

And the remarks come days after ISIS claimed responsibility for a massacre at a concert hall near Moscow that left 137 civilians dead.

Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with hypersonic missiles on Monday morning, US Ambassador Bridget Brink said on the X social network.

“Loud explosions in Kyiv. Over the last 5 days, Russia has launched hundreds of missiles and drones against a sovereign country,” she said. “Ukraine needs our assistance now. There is not a moment to lose.”

Missile debris came down in a central Kyiv district on Monday morning and a residential building was damaged, city authorities said after a string of explosions rang out across the Ukrainian capital.

A Reuters reporter saw a column of smoke rising in the east of the city.

Ukraine’s air force had warned in a Telegram message moments before the explosions that a missile was flying towards the city.

“Explosions in the capital. Urgently to the shelter!” Kyiv city mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messenger.

Russia has dramatically stepped up its missile strikes on Ukraine in recent days.

Ukrainian monitoring agencies have claimed that Russia fired several hypersonic missiles, likely launched from the occupied Crimean peninsula, at the capital of Kyiv this morning.

The message was posted at roughly 8.30am GMT as reports from inside the capital described the situation as “absolute horror”.

Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said a high-rise building in the central district of Pechersk has been damaged, while debris has fallen in two other districts.

“Emergency services follow the scene of the accident,” Mr Popko said. “Data on destruction and casualties are being verified.”

Explosions have been heard in Kyiv, local accounts have reported, as Russia launches a morning missile attack on the capital as commuters headed to work.

The Ukrainian Air Force warned there was a “rocket” being fired at Kyiv, while the Kyiv City Military Administration urged citizens to “head for cover”.

Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian parliamentarian living in Kyiv, wrote on X: “Absolute horror in Kyiv now…”

Another account from Kyiv said the text alerts of a missile threat came late, with people belatedly running to the bomb shelters.

Mother Aysa and her cubs, Emi, Santa and Teddi, spent nine months in a holding facility in Poland having escaped Russian bombs.

Aysa, from a private collection in the Donetsk region, was abandoned as Vladimir Putin’s invaders occupied Ukraine.

The park said Aysa was alone, malnourished and traumatised by bombings when she was rescued and taken to an interim sanctuary in Kyiv – where she gave birth to the cubs before they were all moved to a temporary facility at Poznan Zoo.

On Tuesday, they were driven the 1,000 miles to Yorkshire, arriving at the wildlife park before being unloaded at their new home on Thursday.

Emergency power outages were introduced in Ukraine’s port of Odesa on Monday after a Russian air attack damaged one of the high-voltage facilities there, Ukraine’s top energy provider DTEK said on Monday.

“The situation remains difficult,” DTEK said on the Telegram messaging app. “In order to reduce the load on the network, electric transport will not operate in the city today, and industrial consumption is also limited.”

Oleh Kiper, head of the region’s military administration, announced the blackout on the Telegram messaging app.

“The enemy once again attacked Odesa with attack drones. The energy infrastructure was damaged. There is no electricity supply in part of Odesa,” he wrote.

Kiper added that all emergency services were working.

On the evening of March 24, the Russian military launched several groups of attack drones from the Black Sea at Odesa.

A fire early on Monday at one of the largest thermal power plants in southwestern Russia took two of its units out of operation, briefly disrupting supply to customers, the region’s governor said.

But there were no casualties and authorities were investigating the cause of the fire at the Novocherkassk power plant in Rostov, the governor, Vasily Golubev, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces destroyed 11 drones launched overnight over Rostov by Ukraine, which borders the region, but did not say if there was any related damage.

The Baza Telegram news channel, which is close to Russian law enforcement, said the fire at the plant was caused by Ukraine’s drones, however.

Reuters could not independently verify the report. Ukraine made no immediate comment on the attacks.

Novocherkassk is one of the largest thermal power plants in Russia’s southwest, its owner, OGK-2, which is controlled by a subsidiary of Russia’s energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM), opens new tab, says on its website.