At least 13 injured as Russia launches first missile attack on Kyiv in 44 days

At least 13 people were injured in a Russian missile attack on Kyiv on Thursday, the first attack of its kind on the Ukrainian capital for 44 days, the city authorities have announced.

Kyiv’s city administration said that four of the 13 injured had been hospitalised, while local emergency services said that a further 79 people had been evacuated and that a rescue operation was ongoing following the attack, which caused damage to buildings in central areas of the city.

The damage was reportedly caused by falling debris from downed missiles, with Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk saying that the Russian military had launched 31 missiles at the city, all of which were intercepted by Ukraine’s air defences.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said that its air defences had downed 10 Ukrainian missiles on Thursday, in what it called an attempted “terrorist attack by the Kiev regime” on the city of Belgorod, which is just 40 km from Russia’s border with Ukraine.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov later said that five people had been injured in the attack and that around 5,000 people in the area had been left without electricity.

Russia’s attack on Kyiv came a day after it launched a missile strike on an industrial area of Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv that killed five people.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported that a further nine people were injured and five others were still missing following Wednesday’s strike, which President Volodymyr Zelensky called the latest in a series of “brutal Russian attacks” and to which he pledged to respond in a “principled and precise manner”.