Russia launches deadly new attacks on central Kyiv using drones

In a second significant wave of airstrikes in a week, Russia launched drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, killing at least three people in an apartment building in the heart of Kyiv during morning rush hour.

After explosions shook central Kiev, Ukrainian soldiers fired into the air in an effort to shoot down the drones. Residents sprinted for cover as they witnessed an anti-aircraft rocket streak into the morning sky, followed by an explosion and orange flames.

According to Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev, one of the three people killed in the attack on the residential building was a pregnant woman. Denys Monastyrskyi, the interior minister for Ukraine, said there had been deaths in other cities but he did not provide an exact number.

The Kyiv apartment building was filled with black smoke, and firefighters worked assiduously to put out the fires.

"I have never been so afraid," said Vitalii Dushevskiy, 29, a food delivery courier who rents an apartment in the destroyed structure. "It is murder, it is simply murder, there are no other words for it."

His roommate, who only went by the name Nazar, claimed that when they tried to leave their apartment, the staircase was "all gone."

Elena Mazur, 52, was nearby looking for her mother after she managed to call to inform her that she was buried under debris.

Mazur said, hoping she had been saved and taken to the hospital, "She is not picking up the phone."

Ukraine claimed that the attacks were carried out by "suicide drones" made in Iran, which fly to their intended target before exploding. According to the Russian defense ministry, high-precision weapons were used in a "massive" attack on military targets and energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted on the Telegram messaging app, "Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine. The enemy terrorizes the civilian population all night and all morning."

We will triumph, and the occupiers will receive only just punishment and the condemnation of future generations. The enemy may attack our cities, but it won't be able to defeat us.

For Belgorod was written on parts of a drone used in the attack, which appears to be a reference to Ukrainian shelling of a Russian region bordering Ukraine.

KAMIKAZE DRONES

The attacks happened precisely one week after Russia bombarded Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with its most intense aerial bombardment since the war's beginning, also during morning rush hour.

To wake Ukrainians up with missiles on Mondays is already a tradition, according to lawyer Alla Voloshko, 47, who sought refuge in the basement of her apartment building.

Since Sunday evening, the Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down 37 Russian drones, or about 85% of those used in attacks.

According to officials, a drone attack occurred late on Sunday at the Everi marine terminal in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, damaging storage tanks for sunflowers and igniting leaks of oil.

Andriy, a senior manager who declined to give his last name, said, "This is an entirely civilian facility. There is no military." According to him, Russia was attempting to "destroy the economy and to destroy food security" with these attacks.

Drone attacks on civilians must end, according to Volker Turk of Austria, the new UN human rights chief.

In its "special military operation," which has been ongoing in Ukraine for eight months, Russia denies targeting civilians.

Iran denied providing the drones to Russia once more on Monday. The Kremlin has made no remarks.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a presidential advisor for Ukraine, posted on Twitter that Iran is to blame for the deaths of Ukrainian citizens and that the oppressive nation is now arming the "ru-monsters" (Russians) who are committing mass murder in the center of Europe.

If Tehran's involvement in Russia's war on Ukraine is established, some European Union foreign ministers who are in Luxembourg for talks have called for new sanctions against the country.

SHELLING

Russia has charged Ukraine with hitting targets close to the border in the Belgorod region. On Telegram, pro-Russian news sources claimed that Ukraine had attacked the airport in Belgorod overnight. Kyiv, which ordinarily doesn't comment on events in Russia, made no immediate statement.

The largest nuclear plant in Europe, Zaporizhzhia, was again cut off from the Ukrainian power grid on Monday as a result of renewed Russian shelling in the area, according to the Ukrainian state energy company Energoatom.

Russian forces are occupying the plant, which has frequently been shelled throughout the conflict, but Ukrainian employees run it.

Herman Halushchenko, Ukraine's energy minister, wrote on Facebook, "Ukraine needs protection of the sky above its energy facilities! Such nuclear blackmail of a terrorist country should not go unanswered by the world community."

Russia has long held Kiev accountable for the plant's shelling.

An energy facility in the Dnipropetrovsk region of southern central Ukraine caught fire heavily following a missile strike overnight, a local official reported.

After an explosion on October 8 damaged Russia's road-and-rail bridge to Crimea, the peninsula Moscow seized in 2014, British military intelligence reported on Monday that Russia was experiencing more severe logistical issues in southern Ukraine.

In the southern Kherson region, Russia's defense ministry reported on Monday that its forces had stopped a Ukrainian attempt to breach their defenses.

With the aid of Western weapons, Ukrainian forces have reclaimed territory in the Kherson region over the past two months. This region is strategically important because it connects Crimea to the rest of Ukraine.

The EU's foreign ministers decided on Monday to establish a mission to train approximately 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers starting in the following month and to add an additional 500 million euros to the budget for arm transfers to Kiev.