At least one person has been killed and several embassies have been damaged in an early morning Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
The Kyiv City Military Administration confirmed the death in a post on Telegram, adding that 12 others have been injured. Of those injured, five were hospitalized while the rest were treated at the scene.
It comes a day after Russian leader Vladimir Putin challenged Ukraine to a “duel” in his end-of-year conference, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to call the Russian leader a “dumbass.”
“Let them propose… some kind of technological experiment – a kind of high-tech duel of the 21st century, let’s say,” Putin said during Thursday’s event in Moscow. Zelensky in response hurled the rude epithet at the Kremlin leader in comments made online.
According to Ukraine’s Air Force Command, Russia fired five ballistic missiles at Kyiv at around 7 a.m. on Friday. Ukrainian air defenses shot down all five missiles. In addition, 40 UAVs were shot down, and another 20 drones did not reach their targets, according to the command. However, falling debris caused damage and injuries in the city center, officials said.
In one district, an office building, road surface and gas pipe were damaged, and five cars caught fire, Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said on Telegram. In another district, a fire broke out at the site of a building under construction.