By Vladyslav Smilianets and Gleb Garanich
KYIV (Reuters) -Russian forces unleashed a combined drone and missile strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Saturday, killing three people, while two other attacks in the country’s south killed three more, officials said.
In Kyiv, explosions boomed across the pre-dawn sky as air defences activated against the attack, which also wounded three others, according to city military administration chief Timur Tkachenko.
A shopping mall, business centre, metro station and water pipe were damaged in the assault, he said.
“Russian forces initially launched drones and then a ballistic-missile strike,” parliamentary ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets wrote on social media. “These acts merely underscore the enemy’s ruthlessness and barbarity.”
Rescue workers plodded through a flooded street as they sifted through debris. The charred remains of a van were visible in front of the station, whose facade was marked by twisted metal and blown-out windows.
As daylight broke, they could be seen examining missile fragments and loading a body bag into a truck.
Air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian media that both missiles aimed at Kyiv were destroyed, but that one of them was shot down at a low altitude, resulting in heavy damage.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has denied deliberately targeting civilians.
Another Russian missile attack killed one person and wounded 11 in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said.
The governor of the adjacent southern region of Kherson, Oleksandr Prokudin, said Russian shelling killed two people in a town north of the regional centre, also called Kherson.
The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed 24 of 39 drones and two of four missiles launched by Russia across various parts of Ukraine during the overnight attack.
On Friday, a Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown, killed five people and partially destroyed an educational facility, officials said. One woman wounded in the attack died in hospital on Saturday.
“All those who assist the Russian state in this war must face pressure as impactful as these strikes,” Zelenskiy wrote on social media in response to Saturday’s attack.
Russia has carried out regular air strikes on towns and cities far behind the front line since the start of its almost three-year-old invasion of Ukraine, targeting critical infrastructure in particular.
