Missile barrage hits Kiev (VIDEOS)

Kiev and its suburbs were reportedly struck by dozens of missiles in multiple waves early on Saturday morning, following Russian strikes earlier this week on military-industrial facilities in the Ukrainian capital.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces carried out another large-scale combined strike overnight using high-precision ground- and sea-launched weapons and long-range attack drones.

The strikes targeted Ukrainian defense industry enterprises and logistics centers in Kiev and the surrounding region involved in the “production, storage and delivery of various types of missiles, drones, radar systems, and electronic-warfare equipment,” the ministry said.

The first blasts in Kiev were heard shortly after 1 AM local time, with further explosions reported in several waves through 3 AM. Videos shared on social media show blasts and successive fires across the Ukrainian capital, but the exact locations and types of facilities hit are difficult to verify.

The Ukrainian authorities tightly restrict information about strike sites and penalize those who share footage of impacts. However, another video shared by a witness purportedly shows Kiev’s air defenses attempting – and apparently failing – to intercept the incoming missiles with US-made Patriot systems.

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko reported multiple fires at residential buildings and unspecified “non-residential” industrial facilities in at least four districts. He also claimed that at least three people were killed and more than a dozen injured. 

According to open-source intelligence trackers, the strikes targeted several industrial zones near the CHP-5 power plant and facilities belonging to Ukraine’s state-owned defense conglomerate Ukroboronprom.

The new raid attack came just 48 hours after Russian forces targeted the Mayak plant in Kiev, which produces components for FP-1 and FP-2 kamikaze drones, as well as another drone plant in the Ukrainian capital.

READ MORE: Russia strikes Ukrainian airfield and logistics sites – MOD

Thursday’s strikes, according to the ministry, also targeted airfields, defense-industry facilities, telecommunications infrastructure and logistics hubs in Lviv, as well as in the regions of Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhitomir, Rovno, Vinnitsa, and Dnepropetrovsk.

Moscow maintains that it targets only military and dual-use installations in response to Ukraine’s indiscriminate “terrorist attacks.”

Ukraine has intensified its attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure and commercial vessels since Vladimir Zelensky announced a 40-day “pressure campaign” against Moscow last month. Ukrainian officials have said the campaign is intended to damage the Russian economy and make the public feel the effects of the conflict more directly.