Russia attacked Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with missiles early this Wednesday morning during the visit of the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, who had to go down with the rest of the delegation to the underground plant that It serves as a refuge in the Kyiv hotel where he is staying, according to the Efe agency. Remnants of the downed missiles caused power outages in several parts of the capital, where nine people were injured, while one man died in Mikolaiv in the south.
The alarm that forced the Spanish politician to go down to the shelter before beginning his meeting program today - which includes meetings with President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders - was declared around 6:00 a.m. local time. Borrell arrived in Kyiv yesterday on a new two-day trip to Ukraine to show the EU's military and political support for the country.
Several waves of explosions rocked Kyiv during the attack and air defense systems were dedicated to destroying the missiles, Mayor Vitali Klichkó said on the Telegram messaging application. Six citizens, including a pregnant woman, have been hospitalized following the fire in the residential building in the Holosiivskyi district. And two other people were injured in the Dniprovskyi district, located along the Dnieper River, he added. The head of the Kyiv Military Administration asked residents in the capital not to leave shelters until the alert ends.
Most Ukrainians ignore the sirens - which sound almost every night in much of the country - due to their frequency, sometimes complying with the so-called "two-wall rule" which advises staying in spaces without windows and more protected from the outside such as the hallway or bathroom to avoid direct impact from projectiles or debris. A minority does go down to the subway or the nearest shelters.
Kremlin forces also launched attacks against other regions of Ukraine, as authorities and citizens reported explosions in Mikolaiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and Cherkasy. In the first city, the attack was carried out by three Iranian Shahed-136/131 type drones and missiles.
As a result of the impacts, around twenty residential buildings were damaged by losing roofs, and a fire broke out in a section of an underground gas pipeline. A technical structure was also damaged and another fire broke out in the area of an infrastructure.
