Foreign diplomats visit the site of Russian strike on the Ukrainian Government building. Photo: EPA/UKRAINIAN PM TELEGRAM CHANNEL HANDOUT
Despite Ukrainian officials initially saying that a key government building in Kyiv had been struck by falling debris from an intercepted Russian drone on Sunday, the preliminary results of an Interior Ministry investigation point to the damage being caused by an Iskaner missile instead, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reported on Monday.
The attack, which caused a major fire to break out in the Cabinet of Ministers building, which contains dozens of offices used by senior Ukrainian government officials, was part of a wider barrage of Russian missile and drone strikes on multiple cities across Ukraine that left five people dead and dozens more injured.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko was joined by Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko and Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha and some 60 ambassadors to Kyiv on Monday to inspect the damage caused by the largest Russian attack of the war so far. Since the fire was extinguished, rescue workers have been securing the site, with repairs to the roof set to begin soon.
In a post on Facebook, the EU’s ambassador to Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova, described being shown the remnants of an Iskander missile during the tour. “I saw it with my own eyes: Putin knows exactly what he is doing. The Iskander ballistic missile that struck the Cabinet of Ministers was aimed right there — at the heart of Ukraine’s government.”
“We were shown sizeable remnants of the actual missile. And a multitude of shrapnel coming from the cluster munition embedded in the Iskander,” Mathernova continued, before describing seeing the “gaping hole” in the roof left by the Iskander’s impact.
“Only thanks to the missile failing to fully detonate, the entire building was not reduced to rubble,” Mathernova said, adding that rescue workers had managed to ensure that the fire was contained over just three floors, noting that otherwise, it would have engulfed the rest of the building.
The strike on the Cabinet of Ministers building in the early hours of Sunday morning was the first time in three years of war that the Russian military successfully managed to strike a target inside Kyiv’s tightly defended government quarter. Russia’s Defence Ministry has yet to comment on the strike.