Russian forces launched a missile attack on kyiv early Sunday, setting fires in at least two districts of the Ukrainian capital, the city’s mayor said. Kyiv’s military administration said one person had been wounded. Witnesses reported explosions in the city amid air alerts that sounded after 2 a.m. Mayor Vitali Klitschko, writing on Telegram, said falling debris had caused a fire in a non-residential area of a northern suburb. Several cars were on fire and another fire had broken out in an area just south of the city center, he said. Unofficial Telegram channels posted photographs of what were described as burning market stalls. In recent weeks, Russia has been carrying out intense airstrikes against kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Ukraine says long-range strikes hit a Russian military airfield and a rocket center that supports Russia’s nascent Starlink-style satellite internet network. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that Flamingo cruise missiles hit the rocket facility, about 900 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, as part of kyiv’s campaign to pressure Moscow to end the war by attacking sites deep inside Russia. “It is important that Russia’s war potential be reduced. Peace is needed, and this must be evident in Russia, through concrete damage to specific facilities,” Zelenskyy wrote in X. He said the airfield housed planes used to attack Ukraine. Ukraine’s armed forces said direct hits were recorded at the airfield in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region and at the Progress rocket center in the Samara region, causing fires at both sites. The Samara plant produces rockets used to launch satellites for the Rassvet broadband network, which Russia is developing as an alternative to SpaceX’s Starlink. Starlink operates in Ukraine but not Russia, giving kyiv an advantage in drone operations and battlefield communications. In the Samara region, local officials said air defenses had repelled a “massive missile attack.” “Samara’s industrial infrastructure suffered localized damage,” Ivan Noskov, head of the regional capital, said in an online post. Emergency services are working at the scene, he said. Russia has asked Washington and Ankara to explain reports of possible plans to transfer a “substantial arsenal” of American weapons and ammunition held by Turkey to kyiv, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Saturday. Such a transfer would cause “serious damage… to our bilateral relations with Washington and Ankara,” the spokesperson said in a statement. A Russian attack on an apartment block in southeastern Ukraine on Saturday killed a three-month-old baby and injured 11 people, local officials said. The drones struck the building in the city of Marhanets, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that in the past 24 hours its drones and missiles had attacked Ukrainian logistics centers and energy and transport infrastructure used by the Ukrainian military, as well as assembly workshops for long-range drones and drone ships. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a letter that he was “proud” of the strong ties between their countries, state media reported. North Korea has become a key ally of the Kremlin, sending troops to support Moscow’s war effort in exchange for economic benefits and military technology, analysts say. Kim added that he had a “firm belief” that Russia would prosper and defend its “territorial integrity” under Putin’s “wise leadership.” In a letter to Kim delivered on Friday to commemorate Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II, Putin said relations between the two countries had reached an “unprecedented level of comprehensive strategic partnership.” “Our states actively cooperate in all sectors and at the same time make concerted efforts to ensure regional security and stability,” the Russian leader said. The exchange of letters follows Ukraine’s accusation this month that Moscow had launched North Korean ballistic missiles in an attack that killed at least nine people and injured dozens. kyiv has also recently said that up to 50,000 North Korean troops will be deployed to Russia, although it has provided no evidence to support the claim or a timetable for the deployment.
