KYIV: Russian attacks on Ukraine’s capital and eastern region of Sumy killed at least eight people on Monday, Ukrainian officials said after dozens of drones were launched at Kyiv.
The emergency services said the overall toll in the capital rose to four in the wake of Russian attacks that badly damaged a residential building.
“Four people died and three were taken to hospital,” it said. Two rescue workers were also wounded, it added.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a pregnant wife and her young husband were among the dead in Kyiv.
“A husband and wife who were expecting a child. The woman was six months pregnant,” he said on social media.
In the eastern region of Sumy, emergency services said four people were killed and several more wounded in strikes that the governor said targeted energy infrastructure.
The emergency services said an electrical substation was shelled, provoking a fire that damaged an administrative building.
“Four people died and three people were rescued from the rubble,” it said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said Russian strikes hit energy facilities in Sumy and the central Dnipropetrovsk region. The emergency services said Russian missile strikes on electrical facilities in the central region left one injured, but that power had since been restored.
Meanwhile, the EU on Monday stepped up its military support for Kyiv by launching a mission to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers and providing 500 million euros more for weapons.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed a meeting of his EU counterparts via video link from a shelter in Kyiv and urged them to provide more air defences and sanction Iran over drone supplies to Russia after strikes pummelled the city.
“While Dmytro Kuleba addresses (us) from a bomb shelter, we raise EU military assistance to $3 billion and launch the EU military training mission for Ukraine,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted from the meeting in Luxembourg.
“Russia’s latest indiscriminate attacks will not shake our determination to support Ukraine, it will only reinforce it.”
After almost eight months of war, Ukraine’s forces are making progress on the battlefield and Kyiv’s western backers are keen to make sure its troops have the capacity to keep fighting.
Several EU nations — including Germany and France — are already training Ukrainians to use the modern artillery systems, missile launchers and air defences they are delivering to Kyiv.
But the EU has lagged behind in providing large-scale training to help the country’s military face off against Russia’s invading forces. The United States, Canada and Britain have already been training thousands of troops.
— AFP
