Russian strikes kill woman in Kyiv, cause power outages across Ukraine

Russian overnight strikes killed a woman and injured five people in Kyiv and left nine Ukrainian regions without power on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said, while Moscow said it had targeted military factories and energy facilities. A Russian drone struck a nine-storey apartment building in Kyiv’s Solomyanskyi district, setting it ablaze, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Explosions were heard across the capital in the early hours of Thursday, a Reuters witness said. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had carried out a massive overnight attack, hitting a rocket factory in Kyiv, a drone assembly workshop and a missile fuel factory in the surrounding region, as well as electricity substations in the western Zhytomyr region. Power outages in nine regions The strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure caused power outages in nine regions, Deputy Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov said. Energy and civilian infrastructure were also damaged in the northwestern Rivne region, a local Ukrainian official said on Telegram. Meanwhile, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russian air defences had shot down five Ukrainian drones heading towards the capital overnight. Russia’s Defence Ministry said a total of 71 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted across the country overnight.