Kyiv comes under heavy Russian drone attack

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine said on Saturday Kyiv had come under heavy drone attack overnight, as fresh explosions were heard in the capital and other regions were struck.

"Unfortunately, the attack by Russian drones caused damage and casualties in various districts of Kyiv," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

He said that the "constant terrorist attacks on Ukrainian cities prove that the pressure on Russia and its accomplices is not enough".

AFP reporters heard new explosions in Kyiv on Saturday afternoon amid an air raid alert.

In the morning Ukraine's air force said it had shot down 39 out of 71 drones launched from Russia overnight.

The drones targeted the Kyiv region surrounding the capital, the Sumy border region as well as the central Kirovograd and Poltava regions.

Twenty-one drones were lost and five returned to Russia, the air force said, adding that the drone attack was continuing.

The air force said debris from downed drones had damaged houses and blocks of flats in four regions including Kyiv, Sumy and the Black Sea Odesa region.

Kyiv's military administration said that debris from air defences shooting down drones fell in six districts of the capital, damaging blocks of flats and cars and sparking several fires in buildings that were extinguished.

A policeman was injured, the administration said. 

In the Kyiv region outside the capital, an 82-year-old woman suffered head wounds from shrapnel, officials said.

In a village near the southern city of Kherson, a 40-year-old woman was pulled dead from rubble after Russian troops fired artillery and four were injured including three children, the governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

The health ministry said that a hospital in Kherson was struck, damaging two wards and a laboratory. 

The medics and patients were uninjured as they had taken shelter.

Ukraine's military commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky warned on Saturday that his troops on the ground were "holding back one of the most powerful Russian offensives since the beginning of the full-scale invasion".