[1/3] A view shows the Ukrainian capital at dawn during a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kiev, Ukraine May 30, 2023. Portal/Gleb Garanich
KIEV, June 4 (Portal) – Russia launched a fresh wave of airstrikes against Ukraine early Sunday, hitting an airfield in a central region but failing to hit the capital Kiev, Ukrainian authorities said.
Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told local TV that four of the six cruise missiles were shot down by anti-aircraft defenses, but two hit an “operational airfield” near downtown Kropyvnytskyi.
He added that two of the five Iranian-made drones launched by Russia hit infrastructure in the northern Sumy region.
Kiev officials said anti-aircraft guns shot down all projectiles aimed at the capital before they reached the city.
Separately, a two-year-old girl was killed and 22 people injured in an earlier Russian missile attack on Sunday near the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional governor said.
Since May, Russia has stepped up its regular attacks on Kiev, especially at night. This is an attempt to damage morale ahead of a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake Russian-held territories.
“For the second year in a row, residents of Kiev do not hear the sounds of explosions overhead,” Serhiy Popko, head of the local military administration, told Telegram.
Portal could not independently verify the claim, but witnesses said they heard multiple explosions in the Kiev region.
All of Ukraine was under air raid alert for almost three hours.
Reporting by Gleb Garanich and Dan Peleschuk in Kiev and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Edited by Daniel Wallis, William Mallard and Nick Macfie
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