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Explosions have rocked Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in the early hours of Sunday, with officials warning that the city was under ballistic missile attack just two days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Journalists in the capital reported hearing multiple blasts beginning around 4:00 am local time, shortly after air raid sirens sounded. The Ukrainian air force subsequently expanded the alert nationwide, citing the threat of missile strikes. Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, confirmed the assault, stating on Telegram: “The enemy is attacking the capital with ballistic weapons,” while urging residents to remain in shelters.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people, a woman and a child from the suburbs, had been taken to the hospital with injuries. Emergency crews were deployed across the city as temperatures plunged to nearly minus 10 degrees Celsius. Tkachenko added that a residential building had caught fire following the strike.
The attack has heightened tensions across Ukraine. Poland’s Operational Command announced it had scrambled jets after detecting “long-range aviation of the Russian federation conducting strikes on the territory of Ukraine.”
Hours earlier, explosions had also been reported in Lviv, a western city near the Polish border that rarely experiences deadly incidents. A blast on a central shopping street killed a policewoman and injured 15 others after officers responded to a reported break-in. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi described the incident as “clearly an act of terrorism.”
Ukraine will mark four years since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, 2022. Moscow currently occupies nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory and continues to press forward in parts of the eastern Donbas region.
Despite the ongoing attacks, President Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted that Ukraine is “definitely not losing” the war. He said that Ukrainian forces had regained approximately 300 square kilometres in recent counter-attacks, gains that could represent Kyiv’s most significant advances since 2023 if independently confirmed.
As Washington pushes for negotiations and European leaders prepare further consultations, the conflict shows little sign of immediate resolution.
