Russian drones attack central Kyiv, heavy fighting in east Ukraine By Reuters

By Pavel Polityuk

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia attacked the centre of Kyiv in the course of morning rush hour with drones on Monday and shelled other cities about the state, the next time in a week it has unleashed strikes across Ukraine though its forces experience setbacks on the battlefield.

Soldiers fired into the air trying to shoot down drones soon after the blasts rocked central Kyiv. Residents fled for shelter. An anti-aircraft rocket could be seen streaking into the early morning sky, adopted by an explosion and orange flames.

Reuters later noticed pieces of a drone used in the attack that bore the terms: “For Belgorod” – an evident reference to Ukrainian shelling of a Russian location bordering Ukraine.

The assaults arrived specifically 1 7 days just after Russia unleashed its heaviest aerial bombardment of Kyiv and other Ukrainian metropolitan areas given that the start of the war – also all through early morning hurry hour.

“All night and all early morning, the enemy terrorizes the civilian population. Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine. A household creating was strike in Kyiv,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging application.

“The enemy can assault our cities, but it will not be ready to split us. The occupiers will get only truthful punishment and condemnation of potential generations. And we will get victory.”

There was no rapid word on casualties from the blasts. Ukraine reported the Kyiv attacks made use of Iran-designed ‘suicide drones’, which fly to their concentrate on and detonate, which Russia has significantly deployed in the latest weeks.

Iran denies providing drones to Russia. The Kremlin has not commented.

European Union foreign ministers assembly in Luxembourg may take into account even more sanctions on Iran if they can establish concrete proof that it is supplying drones to Russia, the EU’s best diplomat Josep Borrell stated.

SHELLING

Russia has accused Ukraine of hitting targets in Belgorod area near the border. Pro-Russian information sources on the Telegram social media app reported that Ukraine had struck Belgorod’s airport right away. There was no rapid comment from Kyiv, which ordinarily does not remark on incidents in Russia.

Elsewhere on Monday, renewed Russian shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s greatest, triggered it to be disconnected all over again from Ukraine’s power grid, Ukrainian condition electrical power firm Energoatom reported.

The plant, which has frequently been shelled all through the war, is occupied by Russian forces but operated by Ukrainian staff members.

In southern central Ukraine, a large hearth broke out at an energy facility in the Dnipropetrovsk location just after an overnight missile strike, a nearby official mentioned. Ukraine also noted strikes that set ablaze a sunflower oil terminal in the southern port of Mykolaiv.

British armed forces intelligence stated on Monday Russia was dealing with more acute logistical challenges in southern Ukraine after a blast on Oct. 8 caused problems to a highway-and-rail bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.