By Dan Peleschuk and Sergiy Karazy
KYIV, July 19 (Reuters) – Russia battered Ukraine’s capital Kyiv overnight with one of its biggest ballistic missile barrages of the war, killing at least one person and wounding 16 others, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday.
A series of powerful explosions thundered across the darkened city in an attack that involved 41 missiles of various types, the air force said, ravaging buildings across several districts and sparking fires.
Residential buildings, warehouses, a supermarket and a dormitory were among the structures damaged, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, adding that three people were in a serious condition.
Separately on Sunday, four people were killed and 19 wounded in a strike on a postal depot outside the northeastern city of Kharkiv near the Russian border, the regional governor said.
At one location in western Kyiv, emergency workers picked through smouldering debris and doused bombed-out apartments.
A resident who identified himself as Vlad told Reuters he had been inside his apartment when a blast tore off his balcony door, which smashed him in the head.
“My grandmother lives with me, and she can’t walk. How could I run away and leave her behind?” he said.
Closer to the city centre, the strikes damaged a frequently targeted metro station and destroyed an underground pedestrian passage nearby, leaving a pile of rubble.
Russian forces also struck a rehabilitation centre in the neighbouring region of Sumy, said acting Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. In the regional capital, one person was killed in a guided-bomb attack, according to the interior ministry.
CRITICAL SHORTAGE OF AIR DEFENCES
Russian forces have stepped up ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities in recent weeks as Ukraine struggles with a critical shortage of U.S.-designed air defences.
Kyiv’s military said it had shot down 18 missiles in Sunday’s attack, which was aimed primarily at the Ukrainian capital. It added that 108 out of 125 drones had also been downed.
Last week, Zelenskiy said the U.S. and Ukraine have reached a political agreement on licences to make Patriot interceptor missiles. He added that he hoped production could begin by the end of the year.
But the mounting Russian attacks in the fifth year of Moscow’s full-scale war are heaping pressure on Kyiv’s foreign partners to accelerate supply of anti-ballistic defences.
“Protection against ballistic missiles is our constant and top priority right now,” Zelenskiy said on X on Sunday. “Interceptors are needed every day.”
‘KYIV WILL FLOURISH’
Later on Sunday, workers cleared rubble from around the damaged Kyiv metro station and caved-in underpass as passersby looked on, seemingly unfazed.
Fruit vendors resumed business as usual in their makeshift stalls as an excavator poured debris into a dump truck in the background.
“Kyiv will flourish,” said Iryna Lomeyko, 68, hinting at the stubborn normality of a neighbourhood that has been heavily damaged by repeated Russian strikes.
“Those idiots destroy everything, but we’ll repair it and build anew,” she added. “Everything will be alright.”
(Additional reporting by Andrii Perun and Yuliia DysaEditing by Michael Perry, David Goodman and Sharon Singleton)
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