Russian missiles targeted Kyiv at sunrise Friday, killing at least one person and damaging embassies and a university in the centre of the Ukrainian capital.
Later in the day, Russia officials said Kyiv had launched a deadly strike in its Kursk region, part of which is occupied by Ukrainian troops.
Moscow said its dawn attack on Kyiv was retaliation for a strike using Western missiles on a chemical plant in Russia earlier in the week.
Russian aerial attacks regularly target the capital but rarely cause significant damage as Kyiv is well protected by air defence, nearly three years into Russia’s invasion.
“There were explosions after explosions in a row,” said 45-year-old Ksenia, who was staying at a hotel near the site of a wreckage.
The air force said it had downed all five Iskander missiles Russia launched at the capital, but that debris had damaged several districts.
The strikes killed a 53-year-old man and wounded 13 people, most suffering from shrapnel injuries, city officials said.
They also damaged a building housing the embassies of Argentina, Palestine, North Macedonia, Portugal and Montenegro, and Albania’s diplomatic mission, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said.
‘Barbaric attacks’
“Another heinous Russian attack against Kyiv,” European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen posted on X. “Putin’s disregard for international law reaches new heights.”
In the absence of the Russian ambassador in Lisbon, the charge d’affaires of the Russian Federation has been summoned to be presented with a formal protest, the Portuguese government said.
“These are barbaric attacks on diplomatic institutions, this is crossing all possible red lines and international rules,” foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy was quoted as saying by Ukrainian agency Interfax.
The Kyiv National Linguistics University said on its Instagram account that its building had also been hit. It posted photos of a main campus building with its windows completely blown out, glass shards covering the floor.
Victoria, a 35-year-old doctor, had come out to look at the charred cars and buildings with blown-out windows at the site of an attack.
“Russians should burn in hell,” she said.
Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said Ukraine Patriot air-defence systems had been deployed to shoot down the missiles.
The Ukrainian think tank Defence Express said: “All the missiles were successfully intercepted, but in one case, the warhead failed to be destroyed and it exploded near a business centre in the city centre.”
More strikes
Moscow claimed responsibility for the overnight attack on Ukraine, carried out a day after Russian leader Vladimir Putin threatened to strike Kyiv.
“You know that such strikes on Russian territory have been carried out, and you know that the president has said that every time there will be a response,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
His comment came soon after the Russian defence ministry announced “a combined strike with long-range precision weapons” in response to Ukraine’s earlier attack.
The ministry said it had targeted an office of the SBU security service and a defence industry site. “All the targets have been struck,” it added.
Later Friday, Russia’s Investigative Committee reported a Ukrainian strike on the town of Rylsk in Russia’s Kursk region. According to preliminary information, there are dead and wounded,” it added.
Ukraine has had troops inside the Russian region since August.
‘Dumbass’
Putin, at a press conference Thursday, had suggested a “high-tech duel” over Kyiv to test his claims that Russia’s new hypersonic ballistic missile, dubbed Oreshnik, is impervious to air defences.
“Let them set some target to be hit, let’s say in Kyiv,” he said.
“They will concentrate there all their air defences. And we will launch an Oreshnik strike there and see what happens.”
Zelensky hit back, saying: “People are dying and he thinks it’s ‘interesting’… Dumbass.”
Russian attacks also killed two people in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson Friday.
“Today Kherson woke up from numerous strikes of the Russian army. The occupants have created hell in the city,” governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Prokudin also said shelling had cut power to 60,000 homes in the Kherson region, under daily strikes since Ukraine liberated the city in November 2022.
Russian forces have been pushed back to the other side of the Dnipro river, but that still puts Kherson well within range of Russian artillery on the opposite bank.
A Russian sabotage group tried but failed to cross the Dnipro during the shelling of Kherson, spokesman for the Southern Defence Forces Vladyslav Voloshyn told state-run Suspilne media.
Russian troops are on the offensive again, especially in the eastern Donbas region, where this week they captured two small villages near the city of Pokrovsk.
