Three people have been killed in a Russian air strike on Kyiv overnight, Ukrainian officials have said.
Residents in the city first heard two loud explosions and only then the wail of the air raid siren, around 06:00 (04:00 GMT). The missiles had already hit by the time the ballistic threat warning was issued, urging residents to head for shelter.
The main destruction occurred in the central Shevchenkivskyi district, where there is now a deep crater in the road outside a business centre.
A military factory in the neighbourhood has been targeted repeatedly by Russia, but the damage we saw was to civilian buildings. An official said a couple had been killed on the street inside their vehicle.
Officials earlier reported four people had died in the attack.
The metro station, nearby restaurants and businesses are also very badly damaged, and emergency workers are removing the burned wreckage of cars from the scene.
Already damaged in previous attacks on this area, the business centre’s tall glass tower and main building are now a shell after being hit by either a second missile or very large fragment. It was empty when the missile struck.
Beside the main crater, a Ukrainian forensics expert examined fragments of missile collected into a heap of twisted grey metal on the pavement.
Andriy Kulchytskyy, the head of the Military Research Laboratory of the Kyiv Institute of Scientific Expertise, told the BBC the crater was from a direct hit with an Iskander-M ballistic missile, based on markings on the missile fragments.
“This specific site shows one impact,” he explained. “There are additional strikes, and we have collected debris. Here, the missile directly hit the road.”
Mr Kulchytskyy said the projectile landed before the warning sirens sounded because ballistic missiles travel so quickly that the sirens cannot react in time.
Source:Fiilafmonline/BBC
