During the missile strike, multiple explosions were heard in Kyiv shortly after Ukrainian authorities issued a nationwide air defense warning.
“There are explosions in the city. Stay in shelters,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram today.
Witnesses heard several explosions over Kyiv. Mayor Klitschko later said that the air defenses were engaged in battle and that the debris of a Russian missile had landed on a hospital in the city, but there were no casualties or damage to infrastructure.
The Ukrainian Air Force also issued a nationwide air defense warning, saying the threat was concentrated in the capital Kyiv and the provinces of Chernihiv and Zhytomyr in the north, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk in the west. “The enemy’s MiG-31K fighter took off. We recorded the launches of hypersonic Kinzhal missiles against the Kyiv area,” the agency said.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented on the information. Russia has recently increased its use of missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against targets in Ukraine. Western experts believe this is an attempt to neutralize Ukraine’s air defense complexes, especially the Patriot system, and to deplete anti-aircraft ammunition by forcing them to fire expensive missiles to destroy them continuously.
