Russian air attacks cause industrial facility fire in Kyiv region, injure several

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched missile and drone attacks on Ukraine early on Wednesday, causing a fire at an industrial facility, damaging residences and injuring several people across six regions, local authorities said.

Ukrainian military said it shot down five out of six missiles and all 24 drones launched during Russia’s overnight attack.

Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed all air weapons on their approach to the capital, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv city military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

The debris damaged an industrial facility in the Kyiv region, causing a fire, Kyiv region governor said. Over 105 people were using 30 pieces of equipment to put out the fire as of Wednesday morning.

The attack injured one resident and damaged a private residence, a garage, a gas station and a storage unit, the governor said.

Dnipropetrovsk governor said the attack injured three people and damaged nine private residences, reporting that Ukrainian military shot down 11 drones over his region.

Air raid alerts lasted several hours across all of Ukraine, starting soon after 0000 GMT and including in regions bordering NATO-member Poland.

Polish and allied aircraft have been activated as a precaution, the Operational Command of the Polish armed forces said on the social media platform X. That is often the case when Russia launches an air attack on Ukraine’s western regions.

(Reporting by Valentyn Ogirenko, Sergiy Karazy and Anastasiia Malenko; Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Michael Perry)