Russia fired more than a dozen cruise missiles at Kiev and other parts of Ukraine early Friday in an offensive that killed two people in an eastern city and hit a residential building in the center of the country, authorities said.
Air raid sirens went off in the capital in the first attack on the city in nearly two months, and the Ukrainian air force intercepted 11 cruise missiles and two drones over Kiev, according to its municipal government.
So far no successful strikes have been reported in kyiv, but fragments from missiles or downed drones damaged power lines and a road in a neighborhood. No injuries were reported in the capital.
But a woman and her three-year-old son lost their lives in Dnipro, an eastern city, in another attack, the mayor, Borys Filatov, explained in a Facebook post.
In addition, two cruise missiles also hit a housing and storage facility building in Uman, some 215 kilometers (134 miles) south of Kiev, said Ihor Taburets, the governor of the Cherkasy region. Five people were injured, he added, and all were hospitalized.
The local press shared images and photos of the multi-story building that caught fire, and several of the floors were destroyed.
The offensive came after NATO said its members have delivered more than 98% of promised combat vehicles to Ukraine, bolstering kyiv’s capabilities as it contemplates launching a counteroffensive.
In addition to more than 1,550 armored vehicles, 230 main battle tanks and other equipment, the allies have sent “enormous amounts of ammunition” to the country and trained and equipped more than nine new Ukrainian brigades, NATO Secretary General Jens said. Stoltenberg.
It is estimated that the new brigades are made up of more than 30,000 soldiers.
“This will put Ukraine in a strong position to further retake the occupied territories,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.
The overnight attacks and the NATO announcement came after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping had a “long and meaningful” phone conversation on Wednesday, their first known contact since that Russia invaded its neighboring country in February of last year.
Although Zelenskyy was hopeful about the call and Western officials welcomed Xi’s initiative, prospects for peace do not appear to have improved.
Russia and Ukraine are far apart on their terms for peace, and Beijing — while trying to position itself as a global diplomatic powerhouse — has refused to criticize Moscow’s offensive. The Chinese government sees the Kremlin as a diplomatic ally against Washington’s influence in international affairs, and Xi visited Moscow last month.
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Associated Press writer Patrick Quinn in Bangkok contributed to this report.
