By Pavel Polityuk and Valentyn Ogirenko
KYIV (Reuters) -At least three people were injured and several fires broke out in Kyiv early on Sunday following a Russian missile attack, the mayor and military administration of the Ukrainian capital said.
All of Ukraine was under air alerts as of 0200 GMT after the country’s air force warned of an attack including on regions bordering Poland, forcing the NATO-member to scramble aircraft to ensure air safety.
Fires were recorded in at least three districts of Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post. Medics hospitalised two civilians in the Darnytskyi district on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River that splits the city, he added.
“Do not leave shelters!” Klitschko said.
Reuters’ witnesses heard several loud explosions in what they said sounded like air defence units in operation.
The scale of the attack was not immediately clear. There were also no reports of strikes or damage in western Ukrainian regions that border Poland.
Poland has been on high alert for objects entering its airspace since a stray Ukrainian missile struck the southern Polish village of Przewodow in 2022, killing two people. It scrambles jets each time Russia launches missiles targeting Ukrainian regions close to it.
The Sunday strikes on Kyiv came after officials in the southern region of Mykolaiv reported three people had been injured in Russian strikes. A day earlier, a Russian attack killed at least 19 people including nine children in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.
There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia started with a full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour three years ago. Thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who took office in January after pledging he would end the war in 24 hours, has sought to broker an end to the conflict. The U.S. late last month said it had agreed with Russia and Ukraine two ceasefire accords, including one that would halt strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure.
(Reporting by Valentyn Ogirenko in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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