Russian aerial assault kills four in Kyiv days after Ukraine’s attack on bomber fleet

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - KYIV — Russia launched drones and ballistic missiles at multiple targets across Ukraine, Kyiv authorities said on Friday, in a deadly air assault that left at least four people dead and 20 wounded in the capital.

Ukraine is hit by nightly barrages of Russian drones and missiles. But the country has been bracing for a major retaliatory strike promised by President Vladimir Putin following its daring raids on airfields deep inside Russia. It was unclear whether the assault into Friday was that strike or if further barrages can be expected in the coming days.

Fires caused by falling debris and drone strikes were reported in buildings across Kyiv, as Ukraine attempted to repel the Russian attack, the Head of Kyiv City Military Administration Tymur Tkachenko said. A CNN producer in the Kyiv region reported hearing at least two explosions.

Tkachenko accused Russia of hitting residential areas with the drone attack, saying a high-rise building the the Solomyansky district of Kyiv was damaged. Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko also reported fires in the districts of Holosiivskyi and Darnytskyi of the Ukrainian capital.

Ukrainian air defense units were activated in the Obolon area of Kyiv, Klitschko said on Telegram early Friday morning local time. “The attack on the capital continues. Stay in shelters!” he said.

Photos published by Reuters showed Kyiv residents, some accompanied by children sitting in prams, taking shelter in an underground car park. Search and rescue operations are ongoing as of Friday morning.

In the northwestern city of Lutsk – around 60 miles from the border with Poland – Russian strikes wounded five people, its mayor Ihor Polishchuk wrote on Telegram early Friday.

Separately, a Ukrainian drone attack hit an industrial site in the southern Russian city of Engels, the governor of the region said on Friday.

Footage that CNN has geolocated to the Engels site – about 460 kilometers (285 miles) from the border with Ukraine – shows flames burning and plumes of smoke billowing into the air.

In January, a Ukrainian drone attack hit the Kombinat Kristall oil depot that serves a military airfield in the city.

Russia’s latest drone and missile attack on Ukraine comes days after Ukraine’s security service launched a series of daring, large-scale drone attacks deep inside Russia, striking airfields and hitting multiple military aircraft, including some its prized nuclear-capable heavy bomber aircraft.

On Tuesday, Ukraine also launched an attack on the Kerch Bridge, the only direct connection point between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula, with 1,100 kilograms of explosives that had been planted underwater.

The assault took Moscow by surprise and has sparked an outpouring of calls for huge retaliation from nationalist and pro-Kremlin firebrands inside Russia.

Russia’s heavy bomber fleet have been instrumental in the routine bombardments of Ukrainian cities since Moscow’s full scale invasion, able to fire hard to intercept cruise missiles at a safe distance from Kyiv’s anti-aircraft batteries.

Putin told his US counterpart Donald Trump that Russia would respond to those attacks in the two leaders’ latest phone call on Wednesday.

Trump’s account of the call gave no indication he had called on the Russian president to temper his response, or put pressure Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine. That stance has sparked widespread anger and disappointment in Ukraine.

“When Putin mentioned he is going to avenge or deliver a new strike against Ukraine, we know what it means. It’s about civilians,” Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko told CNN earliuer this week. “And President Trump didn’t say, ‘Vladimir, stop.’”

And on Thursday, Trump compared the war to a brawl between children, saying in the Oval Office: “Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”

Analysts – and Ukraine’s air defense forces – are watching closely for whether Russia might deploy some of its latest weaponry as a way to retaliate against Kyiv for its latest attacks.

For example, Russia launched a new non-nuclear medium-range ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last November, in an attack Putin said was a response to the use of American and British long-range weapons by Ukraine’s military.

That particular missile contained multiple warheads and its use in anger was seen by analysts at the time as a crossing the Rubicon moment.

Russia has expanded its drone and missile production in the past year, allowing for mass attacks using several hundred projectiles at once. The Russian strategy seeks to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses with scores of low-cost drones so that simultaneous missile strikes can succeed.

Ukraine relies on US technology to defend itself against the nightly barrages of drones and missiles.

But the Trump administration has signaled it expects European allies to do far more of the heavy lifting when it comes to protecting Ukraine.

Last week the Pentagon notified Congress that it will be diverting critical anti-drone technology that had been allocated for Ukraine to US Air Force units in the Middle East, according to correspondence obtained by CNN and people familiar with the matter. — CNN