Russian drones attack Kyiv; intense fighting in east

Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s capital on Monday for the second time in a week while Russian and Ukrainian forces battled it out in heavy fighting around two towns in the Donbas region in the east, officials said.

Fighting was particularly intense this weekend in Donetsk and Luhansk, which make up the industrial Donbas, and the Kherson province in the south. They constitute three of the four regions Russia said it had annexed last month after holding what it called referendums – votes that were denounced by Kyiv and Western governments as illegal and coercive.

“The key hot spots in Donbas are Soledar and Bakhmut,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on Sunday. “Very heavy fighting is going on there.”

Bakhmut has been a target of Russian forces in their slow move through the region since taking the twin industrial towns of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk in June and July.

Soledar is just north of Bakhmut.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its forces had repelled efforts by Ukrainian troops to advance in the Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. Russia also said it was continuing air strikes on military and energy targets in Ukraine.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports on the fighting.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called a “special operation” to root out what it calls dangerous nationalists. Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance, with the help of arms supplied by the United States and its allies, who have also imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw.

Away from the front line, Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv was attacked on Monday by so-called kamikaze drones, Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s staff, wrote on the Telegram messaging service. “Russians think it will help them,” Yermak said.

Kyiv’s Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said on Telegram that several blasts had rocked the central Shevchenkivskyi district of Kyiv, with a Reuters witness reporting three explosions. Several residential buildings had been damaged, he said.

“Rescuers are on the site,” Klitschko said, adding that a fire had broken out in a non-residential building. There was no immediate word on casualties.

The same district was hit by explosions a week ago, as Russia ordered the biggest aerial offensive against Ukrainian cities in retaliation for a blast on a bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea – the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The head of the Russian-backed administration in the Donetsk region said on Sunday Ukrainian shelling had damaged the administration building in the regional capital.

“It was a direct hit, the building is seriously damaged. It is a miracle nobody was killed,” said Alexei Kulemzin, surveying the wreckage, adding that all city services were still working.

There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to the attack on Donetsk city, which was annexed by Russian-backed separatists in 2014 along with swathes of the Donbas.

Rybar, a pro-Russian military channel on Telegram, said Ukrainian forces again shelled the southwestern Russian town of Belgorod, near Ukraine.

Anti-aircraft units intercepted most of the attacks, but there were two explosions near the airport. Three people were injured, it said.