Explosions Heard Again in Kyiv as Russia Launches Attack

Kyiv came under attack from Russian ballistic missiles on Thursday, local authorities reported, as cited by AFP. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in the city and air defense activity aimed at repelling the attack in a social media post.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city's military administration, urged residents to take shelter in civil defense bunkers. No information on casualties or damage was available at the time of writing. A state of emergency remains in effect for Kyiv and several other Ukrainian regions.

The latest ballistic missile attack on Kyiv comes less than two weeks after Russia's massive combined assault on 15 June, which killed five people in the capital and damaged the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Kyiv responded to the 15 June attack with unprecedented strikes on Moscow, hitting the Russian capital and its main oil refinery with waves of drones on 16 and 18 June. The latter attack was the largest Ukrainian drone strike on Moscow since the war began in February 2022.

The strikes led to the indefinite suspension of operations at the Moscow refinery, worsening the fuel crisis and once again prompting threats of retaliation from the Kremlin.

With the advance of Russian troops stalled along the front lines, Moscow is increasingly relying on ballistic missiles to inflict maximum damage through large-scale airstrikes on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine's ability to protect its cities depends largely on its stockpile of Patriot missiles, which remain the only weapon effective against Russian ballistic missiles.

(AFP, tasr)