Ukrainian rescuers work to extinguish a fire in a residential building following a missile attack in Kharkiv on September 15, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Russia launched its eighth air attack in September on Kyiv overnight, with air defence units destroying nearly 20 drones that were heading towards the country’s capital, Ukrainian military said on Monday (September 16, 2024).

“Russian attack drones were heading to Kyiv from different directions and in different groups,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on Telegram. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or damage in Kyiv.

The scale of the attack, which kept Kyiv under air raid alerts for about 3.5 hours, will only be known later on Monday (September 16, 2024), he added on the messaging app.

Reuters reported a series of loud explosions in what sounded like air defence systems in operation.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow. Russia says that it targets only Ukrainian infrastructure that is key to its war efforts in its air attacks.

A view shows damaged buildings at the site of a Russian drone strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine on April 23, 2024. Photo: Mayor of Odesa Hennadii Trukhanov via Telegram, via Reuters

Russia launched a drone attack on Ukraine that injured nine people in the Black Sea port of Odesa, four of them children, and also targeted Kyiv, the capital, Ukraine’s military officials said early on April 23.

The injured children, which include two infants, have been hospitalised, as well as three of the injured adults, the Governor of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Several residential buildings in the city were damaged and caught fire, he said. At least 14 apartments were damaged, the City Administration added.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched a total of 16 attack drones targeting Ukraine and two short-range Iskander ballistic missiles.

Air Defence systems destroyed 15 of the drones over Ukraine’s southern regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv, the central region of Cherkasy and the capital region of Kyiv, the Air Force said on Telegram. It did not say what happened to the missiles.

All the drones Russia launched on Kyiv were destroyed, Serhiy Popko, the head of the capital’s military administration, said on Telegram, adding that there were no reports of damage or injuries from the attack.

Also on Telegram, Mykolaiv’s Governor, Vitaly Kim, said wreckage from a downed drone damaged a commercial infrastructure building.