Over dozen injured in Russian airstrikes on Ukraine's Kyiv, Kharkiv

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - More than a dozen people were injured in overnight Russian airstrikes that targeted Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the northeastern city of Kharkiv, local authorities said early Monday.

Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said that the air alert sounded in the capital due to a Russian drone attack that lasted for more than five hours, and that falling debris was recorded in the city’s Dniprovskyi, Holosiivskyi and Solomianskyi districts.

According to Popko, electric cables in the Dniprovskyi district were damaged, while partial damages were recorded in residential buildings in the Holosiivskyi and Solomianskyi districts.

He later reported that a person received facial injuries in the Solomianskyi district, though he was not hospitalized.

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said that at least 13 people were injured in Kharkiv after guided bombs struck infrastructure in the city late Sunday.

Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram that the attack, which hit the city’s Osnovianskyi and Kyivskyi district, damaged 35 buildings.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, located about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the Russian border, has been regularly targeted by airstrikes, which have increased as Russia attempts to breach Ukraine’s defenses in the broader region since early May.

The Russian offensive in the northeastern region opened a new front in the over two-year-long conflict that was hitherto concentrated in the country’s east and south.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force claimed that its air defenses downed 59 out of 116 Russian drones launched on the country overnight.

Russian authorities have not yet commented on the claims.