Kyiv's mayor said seven people, including a teenage girl, were wounded on Monday, March 25, after Ukrainian air defense systems downed two Russian ballistic missiles over the capital. Russia has escalated aerial attacks on Kyiv in recent days, targeting key infrastructure in the wake of fatal Ukrainian bombardments on Russian border regions.
The head of Kyiv's military administration, Sergiy Popko, said Russia had attacked with two ballistic missiles launched from the annexed Crimean peninsula, in what was the third aerial assault on the capital in five days. He said both missiles had been downed but falling debris crashed down in several central districts, and damaged two buildings.
"Again this morning Russia is attacking Ukraine with hypersonic missiles. Loud explosions in Kyiv," the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, wrote on social media. "Ukraine needs our assistance now. There is not a moment to lose," she added, a reference to a $60 billion military aid package held up in the US Congress.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba posted footage purporting to show school children running to a shelter at the time of the attack. "This is a reminder that Ukraine urgently requires more air defense, particularly Patriot systems and missiles capable of repelling any Russian attack," he wrote.
President Volodymyr Zelensky also said the attack showed again that Ukraine needs better air defense systems from its allies. "It means safety for our cities and saved human lives. All of us in the world who respect and protect life need to stop this terror," he wrote on social media.
Ukraine has been appealing to its allies for months for greater air defense capabilities as Russia steps up attacks across Ukraine. The Kyiv attack came after almost a dozen people were wounded in a Russian drone strike on southern Ukraine overnight, and a fire broke out at a major Russian power plant following a Ukrainian drone attack.