Ukraine: one dead and six embassies damaged in kyiv by Russian missiles

One person killed, others injured: Russia fired ballistic missiles at kyiv on Friday morning and damaged several embassies. It was a “response” to a Ukrainian strike carried out on Wednesday with Western missiles against a Russian factory.

According to the latest report from the military administration of the Ukrainian capital, in addition to one death, “12 people were injured” including five hospitalized. Six diplomatic missions were damaged by Russian strikes, which devastated a wealthy neighborhood in the center of kyiv on Friday morning, Ukrainian diplomacy indicated.

“Another heinous attack on kyiv. This time against a building housing the Portuguese embassy and other diplomatic services, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X. Putin’s contempt for international law is reaching new heights. » “Solidarity with Portugal,” she adds.

This is a “new barbaric attack on the part of Russia against civilian targets”, denounced the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas. “No diplomatic representation should ever be targeted or even impacted.” “I express all my solidarity with the diplomatic staff,” she wrote on the social network X.

The Portuguese government also condemned the attack “vehemently” in a statement and summoned the Russian charge d’affaires.

Iskander missiles against Patriot system

kyiv, which had more than three million inhabitants before the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, is regularly targeted by missiles and explosive drones but significant damage is rather rare, especially in the center, the city being relatively well protected by anti-aircraft defense. The Russian attack was carried out using five “Iskander-M/KN-23” ballistic missiles.

All the missiles were successfully intercepted, but one of the warheads could not be destroyed, exploding near the office building,” said a Ukrainian analysis center, Defense Express. Ukraine used the powerful American Patriot system to shoot down the projectiles, according to a Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson.

Charred carcasses were visible nearby. Residential buildings, a hotel, a Catholic church and a university were also damaged.

Putin proposes a “high-tech duel”

This attack on kyiv came after an exchange of barbs between the master of the Kremlin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. Vladimir Putin proposed Thursday during his major annual press conference a “duel” between his “Orechnik” missile, which he suggested firing at the Ukrainian capital, and Western anti-aircraft defense means.

“We are organizing such an experiment, such a high-tech duel, and we will see what happens. It’s interesting,” he said. “People are dying, and he thinks it’s interesting…Asshole,” President Zelensky fumed at X.

AFP journalists in kyiv heard a series of explosions around 7 a.m. (6 a.m. in Paris), then saw smoke rising above several locations. Missile “debris” fell on three kyiv neighborhoods, says Mayor Vitali Klitschko

The worst-hit area is in an affluent central neighborhood where the roof of a luxury office building was partially destroyed. Charred carcasses were visible nearby. Residential buildings, a hotel, a Catholic church and a university were also damaged.

Without electricity or heating

In particular, they caused a heating cut for several hours in more than 600 residential buildings, health establishments and schools in temperatures close to zero, he lamented.

The Russian army also bombed Kherson, a large city in the south of the country, at dawn. At least two people were killed and 10 injured in this strike which hit “essential” infrastructure, depriving “up to 60,000” homes of electricity, according to regional authorities.

In eastern Ukraine, where the Russian army has been advancing rapidly in recent months, it announced Friday that it had captured two small villages near the key town of Pokrovsk.