KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian air defense systems targeted drones flying over Kyiv, including one that was seen over the government center in the heart of the capital, just one day after Russia accused Ukraine of targeting the Kremlin in a drone attack. As night fell, loud explosions echoed over Kyiv for the fourth night in less than a week, and the second time since the two blasts above the Kremlin, which sparked dueling accusations between the two countries.
Ukraine denied any involvement in the incident at the Kremlin, but took Moscow’s threats of escalation seriously. “Of course, the efforts to cover the skies over Kyiv will only increase,” Fedir Venislavsky, a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, said on Radio Liberty.
At least two drones were spotted over Kyiv, and video shared online showed one being shot down, prompting cheers from watchers below in Kyiv’s central square, referred to locally as the Maidan. The flight of a drone over central Kyiv’s government quarter — near the home of Parliament and the presidential office — and its destruction was freighted with both symbolic and strategic significance.
The Maidan, also known as Independence Square, is where Ukrainians took to the streets in protests nearly a decade ago, ultimately leading to a revolution that forced the Kremlin-backed president from office. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has used memories of that moment many times to rally a nation now at war.
At another site in the center of Kyiv, debris landed in a park within a few hundred yards of the Parliament building. Police were seen standing around a gray-painted piece of a wing.
Police and firefighters cordoned an office building nearby where ground floor windows were shattered.
The area smelled of smoke. Oleksandr Kekhter, who works in clothes wholesale, and his wife, Daria Kekhter, were walking to seek shelter in a parking garage during the air raid alert when they saw a drone, what they described as looking like a small propeller airplane, in the sky.
“This is the third night in a row a drone flew over our house,” said Mr. Kekhter. “It’s happening every night. We hide in the parking garage.”
Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Mr. Zelensky, confirmed in a statement that a drone had been shot down..
While Kyiv has come under frequent and often unrelenting bombardment since Russia began its full-scale invasion more than a year ago, rarely has Russia launched drones at the capital night after night. The air raid alarm on Thursday evening was not nationwide, as is often the case, but focused only on Kyiv.
Explosions also shook Kyiv early Thursday and a regional official said air defenses shot down Russian drones and ballistic missiles. The Ukrainian military’s southern command in Odesa said drones were also shot down there in the early-morning hours and provided images that suggested that some bore handwritten messages including “For Moscow” and “For the Kremlin.”
There were no…
2023-05-04 14:53:15
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