Russia launches biggest drone attack on Kyiv since start of the war

Ukraine says Russia carried out the biggest drone attack on Kyiv since the start of the war in February 2022. 

The Ukrainian capital was under alert for six hours overnight, as waves of Russian Shahed attack drones were targeted at the city. 

The country’s air force wrote on social media that it shot down 71 of the drones. “Most of them were destroyed in the Kyiv region.” 

Five people, including an 11-year-old child, were injured in the Russian attack, according to local authorities.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said falling drone debris caused fires and damaged buildings in the capital. 

“The enemy continues to spread terror,” he said. 

Nearly 200 buildings in Kyiv remain without power, Ukrainian authorities say.

“On the morning of November 25, a large-scale drone attack in the capital cut a power supply line,” Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said in a statement. “As a result, 77 residential buildings and 120 buildings in the central part of the city are without electricity,” they added.

The attack comes as Ukraine commemorates the Holodomor, the famine caused in the country by the Soviets 90 years ago, which resulted in the deaths of several million people.

“More than 70 (drones) Shahed during the night of the Holodomor commemoration… The Russian leaders are proud of their ability to kill”, reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on social networks.

Zelenskyy also deemed it “impossible” to forgive “the crimes of genocide” committed by the Soviets during the Stalin era against the Ukrainians during the great famine of the 1930s.

“It is impossible to forget, to understand and above all to forgive the horrible crimes of genocide that Ukrainians endured in the 20th century,” declared the Head of State in a statement.