Russia launches waves of drone attacks on Kyiv, Ukraine’s military says

By Gleb Garanich and Pavel Polityuk

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched several waves of drones targeting Kyiv early on Monday, with air defence units successfully defending the city, Ukraine’s military said.

Reuters’ witnesses heard numerous blasts in the Ukrainian capital in what sounded like air defence systems in operation and saw objects being hit in the air.

All the drones that Russian launched at Kyiv were either destroyed by defence systems or neutralised by electronic warfare, Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

Estimates of the full scale of the attack will come later on Monday, but according to preliminary information, there were no casualties and no damage reported, he added.

Kyiv, its surrounding region and all of the eastern part of Ukraine were under air raid alerts for more than five hours early on Monday, according to data from Ukraine’s air force.

Russia has launched multiple air attacks on Kyiv and Ukraine throughout September, targeting Ukraine’s energy, military and transport infrastructure in attacks which have killed dozens of civilians.

Russia denies targeting civilians in the full-scale invasion it called a “special operation” when it was launched in February 2022.

(Reporting by Gleb Garanich, Valentyn Ogirenko, Pavel Polityuk and Sergiy Karazy in Kyiv; Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Tom Hogue and Lincoln Feast.)