Russia launches massive drone attack against Ukraine's Kyiv; 5 injured as hotel caught on fire

The Russian forces on Thursday attacked the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, with drones and missiles, injuring at least five people and leaving residential buildings in shambles. Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko took to Telegram and said that the strikes triggered fire in a hotel on a central boulevard.

He noted that the hotel roof was the first thing that caught fire. Photographs and videos circulating online showed the fire burning out of control at the ​top of the ‌building on ‌the central Shevchenko Boulevard. In a later post on Telegram, Klitschko said Kyiv had come under ballistic missile attack, with five people injured in one of the central districts. Multiple explosions were heard in Kyiv, a Reuters witness said.

Meanwhile, many were trapped inside a damaged nine-story residential building, and the roof of another high-rise ​apartment building was on fire, Klitschko added in his update. Other visuals from Telegram channels showed the residents crowding into underground stations.

Amid the attacks, Nato member Poland scrambled ⁠fighter ​jets ⁠as a preventive measure, ‌the Polish Armed Forces said ‌in a post on X. “These actions are of ‌a preventive nature and ​are aimed at securing and protecting the ⁠airspace, especially ​in areas adjacent ​to the ​threatened ​regions,” ‌the post ​read.

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Zelenskyy issued a warning.

The strikes came just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that intelligence ⁠reports showed an overnight attack on the ​country was ​likely and said he ​was cutting short his stay in ​Dublin. The Ukrainian president visited for ​the ​start of Ireland’s six-month term in charge of the rotating presidency of the EU.

“We know that Putin has been preparing a massive strike against Ukraine for some time,” Zelensky wrote on the social platform X, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “That is exactly the threat we are facing tonight. Russia’s head is completely refusing to end the war.”

He also repeated his calls to meet Russian officials to seek an end to the four-year-long war. Earlier this month, Zelenskyy asked Putin to meet with him face-to-face. However, the Russian leader rejected the request, saying he did not “see any point for now.”

“And although through all possible official and unofficial channels –– including through people close to him –– we have conveyed that the war can and must be ended, and that we in Ukraine are ready for meetings and meaningful negotiations, he sees only further aggression against Ukraine and against other neighbours and Europe as a whole,” he wrote on social media.

The attack on Kyiv is coming at a time when Ukraine has stepped up its drone strikes into Russia’s territory. Zelenskyy has previously praised his country’s success in entering Russian territory after a Ukrainian drone entered Moscow on Tuesday and hit Dubna Satellite Communications Centre, a major source of intelligence-gathering and where Russia can coordinate its military operations in Ukraine.

With inputs from Reuters.