Russian missiles strike Ukraine capital Kyiv after weeks of relative calm

The blasts marked the first assault on the Ukrainian capital in weeks as life had slowly begun to resemble normal in the city and its suburbs

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s General Staff on Sunday morning accused Russian forces of using phosphorus munitions in the Kharkiv region

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Smoke rises from a building in Kyiv on Sunday after the Russian missile strikes. Photo: Reuters

Published: 1:12pm, 5 Jun 2022Updated: 4:04pm, 5 Jun 2022

A barrage of Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s capital early on Sunday, hitting unspecified “infrastructure” targets, Kyiv’s mayor said. No one was reported killed, with one person hospitalised with injuries.

But the attack shattered a sense of calm in Kyiv, which hadn’t seen similar strikes since the April 28 visit of UN Secretary-General António Guterres. And it showed that Russia still had the capability and willingness to target Ukraine’s capital since abandoning its wider offensive across the country to instead focus its efforts in the east.

The missiles hit the Darnytski and Dniprovski districts in the city and emergency services had arrived to the scene, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app. Air raid sirens had gone off around the time of the blasts.

An acrid smell of smoke filled the air in the Darnystki district of eastern Kviv, with a billowing pillar of smoke rising in the sky. Soldiers and police blocked off a main road to the site. Smoke billowed from the charred and blackened wreckage of a warehouse-type structure.

A resident of a flat overlooking the area with the charred warehouse said she’d been awakened by loud explosions in the early morning. She said the site had been targeted before but without causing such damage.

Police near the site told reporters that military authorities had banned the taking of images. Soldiers also blocked off a road in a nearby area leading toward a large railway yard.