Russia launches more than 100 drones at Ukraine in New Year’s attack, Kyiv says

LONDON — At least six people, including a pregnant woman, were injured in Kiev after Russia fired more than 100 drones in an overnight strike on New Year’s Day, Ukrainian military and civilian officials said.

Ukraine’s air force said at least 111 attack drones were launched into at least 10 regions across Ukraine, including the capital. Ukraine shot down 63 drones and another 46 missed targets, the military said.

“The air attack was repelled by aviation, anti-aircraft missile troops, electronic warfare units, mobile units of the Air Force and the Defense Forces of Ukraine,” the air force said.

Ukraine began the new year with “another major airstrike,” Ukrainian parliament speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said.

“These inhumans decided to start the year hot and, like real weaklings and cowards, continued to hit civilians,” Stefanchuk. he said in social networks “I wish the victims a speedy recovery.”

Air raid sirens went off before dawn in Kyiv, prompting people to go to shelters, the Kyiv City State Administration said.

Most of the injured were in the city’s central Pecherskyi district, where the strike sparked a fire in an apartment building, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Ukrainian-language post on the Telegram messaging app.

“Two of them were hospitalized. Both were treated by doctors on the spot,” said Klitschko. Among the injured was a pregnant woman, the municipal administration announced in a statement.

Falling debris broke windows, set fire to a garage and damaged trams in the western district of Sviatoshynskyi, Klitschko added.