Explosions heard in KyivThe Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins is in Kyiv, where she has heard at least three explosions this morning.
On Telegram, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote:
“The explosion in the Shevchenkiv district – in the center of the capital. All services follow in place. Details later. The air alert continues. Stay in shelters!”
The Shevchenkivskiy district is the same area that was hit by several explosions a week ago, on 10 October. At least 19 people were killed in last week’s attacks on Kyiv and more than 100 were injured.
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Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has tweeted his response to this morning’s drone attacks in Kyiv. He said:
Today, Russia again attacked civilian and energy facilities in Ukraine. Apartment building in Kyiv is among the terrorists’ targets. People are injured. The world’s response to these crimes must be clear: more support for Ukraine and more sanctions against the aggressor.
Here is another image showing Ukrainian security forces attempting to shoot down a drone over Kyiv this morning.
Ukrainian soldiers shoot at a drone that appears in the sky above Kyiv. Photograph: Vadym Sarakhan/APIran again denies supplying drones to Russia for use in UkraineIran said again on Monday that it had not provided Russia with drones to use in Ukraine.
“The published news about Iran providing Russia with drones has political ambitions and it is circulated by western sources. We have not provided weaponry to any side of the countries at war,” Reuters reports Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said during a weekly press conference.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said after a new wave of Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian cities on Monday that Russia should be expelled from the G20 group.
“Those who give orders to attack critical infrastructure to freeze civilians and organise total mobilisation to cover the frontline with corpses, cannot sit at the same table with leaders of G20 for sure. Time to put an end to Russian hypocrisy. The Russian Federation must be expelled from all platforms,” Reuters reports he wrote on Twitter.
Russian news agency Tass is reporting that buses are once again allowed to cross the Crimea bridge, which was damaged in an attack a few days ago.
Tass quotes Kerch’s mayor Svyatoslav Brusakov saying “The most important thing is that we are already sending buses – these are children’s groups, excursions. And buses arrive at the Kerch bus station. Buses go over the bridge as usual.”
Initially when the road bridge was re-opened it was only available for use by cars.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, has posted to Telegram to say that the night in the Ukrainian-controlled area of the region “passed relatively calmly”.
He stated “there were no casualties, but there is destruction”, citing attacks in the districts of Pokrovsky, Kramatorsk and Bakhmut.
The claims have not been independently verified. Donetsk is one of the regions of occupied Ukraine that Russia has claimed to “annex”.
Isobel Koshiw, who has been covering the war for the Guardian, tweets that there are instructions circulating on social media on how to shoot down drones using small arms. We have already seen images emerging of security forces attempting to shoot down the drones on Kyiv’s streets this morning.
A police officer fires at a flying drone in Kyiv. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty ImagesMaksym Marchenko, governor of Odesa, has said that overnight air defences in his region shot down kamikaze drones. He posted to Telegram to say:
At night, six enemy kamikaze drones were destroyed in the sky over Odesa by anti-aircraft defence units. In the morning, the occupiers launched a rocket attack on the region with a Kh-59 missile. [It] damaged [an] infrastructure object. Fortunately, there were no casualties.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Justin Crump, a defence, intelligence and security expert, has been interviewed by the BBC on the Radio 4 Today programme about Russia’s drone tactics. He said:
These drones are used, they are relatively cheap, which is why Russia has turned to them, and they are effective because they have quite a small cross-section, they are quite hard to detect for radar. They fly low. And the way that you can send them in waves – or effectively swarms – makes them much harder to counter by air defences. If they are hit they are relatively easily disabled. They are comparatively light vehicles. But it is detecting them in the first place, and when it is going on for hours, obviously it has steadily overwhelmed air defences.
Reuters is carrying a little extra witness detail from the attacks in Kyiv this morning. It reports that a Reuters reporter saw pieces of a drone used in the attack that bore the words: “For Belgorod.”
The governor of the Russian region of Belgorod – close to the border with Ukraine – has accused Ukrainian forces of repeatedly shelling the region. Gunmen shot dead 11 people at a military training ground in the Belgorod region on Saturday.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has responded to this morning’s attacks. He has posted to Telegram to say:
All night and all morning, the enemy terrorises the civilian population. Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine. A residential building was hit in Kyiv.
The enemy can attack our cities, but it won’t be able to break us. The occupiers will get only fair punishment and condemnation of future generations. And we will get victory.
Two people trapped under rubble after kamikaze drone attack on Kyiv – mayorEighteen people have been rescued from a building struck by kamikaze drones this morning in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, but at least two people remain trapped under rubble, according to reports from the city’s mayor.
Vitali Klitschko posted to Telegram to say:
As a result of an attack by kamikaze drones, an explosion occurred in a residential building in the Shevchenko district of the capital. At present, 18 people have been rescued from it. According to preliminary information, two residents remain under the rubble. Rescue operations are ongoing. Extinguishing of destroyed building structures and demolition of rubble is ongoing.
He said authorities were continuing to try and verify casualty figures from the attacks.
While drone attacks have taken place in Kyiv, the pro-Russian “authorities” in occupied Donetsk have said that Ukrainian forces have been shelling Donetsk, Horlivka and Makiivka in the east of the country. The Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency cites messages on Telegram saying that 19 155mm and 152mm calibre shells were fired. The claims have not been independently verified.
Here are more of the images we have been sent via the newswires showing the aftermath of drone attacks in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
Firefighters conduct work after the Russian drone attacks in Kyiv. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesA man surrounded by dust near the site of one of the drone attacks. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty ImagesFirst responders attend the site of a drone attack in Kyiv earlier this morning. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesA Ukrainian serviceman sits in the street after a Russian drone strike. Photograph: Gleb Garanich/ReutersThe latest update from Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, warns residents of the city to continue to exercise caution. He writes:
In the centre of the capital, traffic is blocked on sections of several streets. I am appealing to the residents of Kyiv: do not go to the city centre without an urgent need. Also, don’t ignore the air warning signals. Let’s be conscious and take care of our own safety. Let’s stand together!
Firefighters conduct work in a destroyed building after the Russian drone attacks in Kyiv this morning. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesIn the UK, the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme has interviewed a witness from Kyiv about this morning’s attacks on the city. She told listeners:
[In the] last two hours, we can hear the explosions and the noise of the drones flying over our building, almost constantly. Believe me, once you’ve heard the sound of a rocket flying over your building, or a drone flying over your building, you can tell the difference. You can feel the difference.
A rocket is more like a whistle. If we are talking about the drones, imagine some huge 200kg motorcycle flying over your building. It is really freaking scary.
It’s something like every 10 or 15 minutes. We can hear the series of noises. We can tell that drones are flying and then our forces trying to hit them, every 10 or 15 minutes
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant again cut off from external energy supplyThe operator of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) has said that it has again been disconnected from external power supply as a result of Russian shelling.
Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned concerned which runs the ZNPP, has posted to Telegram to claim that:
Russian terrorists once again fired at substations of critical infrastructure in the territory under the control of Ukraine, as a result of which at 03:59 the last communication line of 750 kV ZANP – Dniprovska was disconnected. In the transitional process, due to a short-term voltage drop, the reserve transformer of the ZNPP’s own needs was turned off and the diesel generators were started.
We once again appeal to the international community to urgently take measures for the demilitarisation of the ZNPP as soon as possible, the withdrawal of all Russian military personnel from the territory of the plant and the city of Energodar, and the return of the ZNPP to the full control of Ukraine for the sake of the security of the whole world.
The claims have not been independently verified. Russian forces have been occupying the ZNPP, Europe’s largest nuclear power station, since the earliest days of the war in Ukraine. The ZNPP is located in one of occupied regions of Ukraine which Russia claims to have “annexed”, and Russia has announced its intention to bring the ZNPP under the control of Russia’s nuclear authorities.