BBCThree people have been killed in a Russian air strike on Kyiv overnight, Ukrainian officials have said.
A ballistic missile landed just before the authorities sounded the alarm at 06:00 local time (04:00 GMT), shortly after a previous air raid alert had ended.
Visiting the scene, in the city’s central Shevchenkivskyi district, a large crater can be seen in the road outside a business centre – a tall glass tower which is itself is very badly damaged by either a second missile or very large fragment.
It is unclear what was being targeted in the attack, which left other buildings in the area littered with debris and shattered glass.
Officials earlier reported four people had died in the attack.
Beside the main crater, a Ukrainian forensics expert was examining fragments of missile collected into a heap of twisted grey metal on the pavement.
Andriy Kulchytskyy, the head of the Military Research Laboratory of the Kyiv Institute of Scientific Expertise, told the BBC the crater was from a direct hit with an Iskander-M ballistic missile.
“This specific site shows one impact,” he explained. “There are additional strikes, and we have collected debris. Here, the missile directly hit the road.”
“Missile fragments have specific characteristics and markings. By their number, you can identify their origin.”
The projectile landed before the warning sirens because ballistic missiles travel so quickly that the sirens can’t react in time, Mr Kulchytskyy said.
The business centre was empty when the missile struck, and had been new before 2022 with no-one having moved in since.
Everything around it – including the local McDonald’s – has been similarly damaged.
A nearby dental clinic has been all but destroyed in the blast. Inside, staff are picking through the shattered glass and the mess, recovering what they can.
One woman was removing baubles from a plastic Christmas tree that was still standing.
“It’s happened before,” she told me, “but never as badly as this”.
Asked how she felt, she shrugged: “We got used to it.”
A young man, coming out of a nearby block of flats described the blasts early this morning.
“There were three explosions in a row, then a big fire glow in the sky – and the building shook. It was very loud,” Oleksandr said.
“I woke up immediately – I even felt the wall shaking. When the third strike came, it was pretty scary.”
On Saturday morning, emergency teams and police were everywhere and the main road had been cordoned off.
Videos posted online showed a car in flames and water rushing down a flooded street in the immediate aftermath.
Air defences were in operation around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
It is the second fatal attack on Kyiv this month, following a strike on the city on New Year’s Day that left two people dead.
Meanwhile, in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, the local authorities say six people were wounded in a Russian strike on Saturday. One woman is said to be in a serious condition.
These strikes are the latest in the war that began following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
They follow several Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory earlier in the week.
The latest strikes take place just days before the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump in the US, with many Ukrainians concerned by Trump’s pledge to reduce US military and financial aid to the embattled country.
The president-elect had claimed during the campaign that he would end the conflict on the first day of his presidency, though he has since said that he may need six months.
In recent days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reiterated the country’s dependence on US support as Russian air strikes and fighting on the front line continue.
This article was originally published at www.bbc.com
