On first day of school in Ukraine, Russia launches drones and ballistic missiles at Kyiv
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched an overnight barrage of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv, officials said Monday, as children prepared to return to school across Ukraine. Some pupils found their first day of classes canceled because of damage from the attack.
Several series of explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital in the early hours. Debris from intercepted missiles and drones fell in every district of Kyiv, wounding three people and damaging two kindergartens, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. City authorities reported multiple fires.
After more than 900 days of the war, Russia and Ukraine show no sign of letting up in the fight or moving closer to the negotiating table. Both sides are pursuing ambitious ground offensives, with the Ukrainians driving into Russia’s Kursk region and the Russian army pushing deeper into the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that is part of the industrial Donbas region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Ukraine’s Kursk assault won’t prevent Russian forces from advancing in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces haven’t achieved their goal of diverting Russian troops from the fighting there, he said.
“The main task that the enemy set for themselves — to stop our offensive in Donbas — they haven’t achieved it,” Putin told school students during a trip to southern Siberia.
Speaking in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s operation in Kursk had drawn Russian troops away from southern Ukraine, but acknowledged that it had not yet succeeded in diverting Russian forces from the eastern frontlines, where the city of Pokrovsk is at risk of falling.
“We see that it is difficult there, and the most combat-ready Russian brigades have been concentrated in this area because it has always been their main target — Donbas. The complete, total occupation of Donbas: Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” Zelensky said.
He said last month that the aim of the Kursk incursion is to create a buffer zone that might prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border.
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Putin predicted that Ukraine’s Kursk offensive, which began Aug. 6, would fail and that subsequently Kyiv officials would want “to move to peace talks.”
Russia launched 35 missiles of various types and 26 Shahed drones at Ukraine overnight from Sunday to Monday, the Ukrainian air force said. Nine ballistic missiles, 13 cruise missiles and 20 drones were downed, it said.
Residents of the capital hurried into the city’s bomb shelters.
Oksana Argunova, an 18-year-old student at a Kyiv high school, said she was still shaking after the nighttime scare.
“I woke up, my neighbor was shouting: ‘Let’s go down [to the shelter], there are big explosions.’ We all ran,” Argunova told the Associated Press.
In Ukraine, the first day back at school after the summer vacation involves ceremonies and rituals. Students of all ages and often teachers and parents wear traditional costumes, and celebrations include concerts and dances.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, visiting Ukraine for the first time since taking office, traveled with Zelensky to Zaporizhzhia, 25 miles from the front line.
They visited an underground school, and Schoof announced his government would give Ukraine 200 million euros ($221 million) to help protect and repair the electricity infrastructure targeted almost daily by Russian bombs.
“It must never be normal for children to have to go to school underground. It must never become normal for people’s homes to be cold because power plants have been bombed,” Schoof said.
In Kyiv, small groups of children and parents gathered outside a damaged school as firefighters put out flames and removed rubble.
One 39-year-old mother turned up at the school with her 7-year-old daughter, Sophia, unaware it had been hit. It was Sophia’s first day at what for her was a new school, her mother said, after a frightening night.
“Of course, the child was scared. We hid in the bathroom, where it was relatively safe,” said the mother, who provided only her first name, Olena.
“Today is one of the most important days of the year for millions of our Ukrainian children, families and teachers,” Zelensky said on his Telegram channel.
“Ukraine is doing everything to give children as many opportunities as possible. And all our schools, all higher education institutions that are working today are proof of the resilience of our people and the strength of Ukraine,” he said.
Both sides are launching regular long-range drone and missile strikes, sometimes more than 100 weapons at a time in aerial attacks that suggest they are still pouring resources into weapon production.
Russian air defenses intercepted 158 Ukrainian drones overnight, including two over Moscow and nine over the surrounding region, the Defense Ministry said.
The Ukrainian headquarters of the Danish humanitarian organization DanChurchAid was destroyed by missile fragments, its head Jonas Nøddekær said.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, 18 people were injured in a Sunday evening strike on a center for social and psychological rehabilitation of children and an orphanage the northeastern city of Sumy, regional authorities said.
The regional prosecutor’s office said there were no children in the facility when the strike hit, but people, including six children, in surrounding residential buildings suffered injuries.
The educational center was partially destroyed and caught fire, and the buildings around it were damaged by the shock wave, State Emergency Services said.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is facing intense Russian airstrikes, but its residents are defiant. “We can stand up, no matter what they do,” one said.
An explosion also rang out in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to Ukrainian media. Oleh Sinegubov, head of the Kharkiv region, confirmed an early morning strike on Kharkiv’s Industrialnyi district and said it set a residential building and several others on fire.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said Sunday that Russian forces accelerated their advance on the key Donetsk stronghold of Povkrosk over the past week and are likely within six miles of the city.
There have been no significant changes elsewhere along the more than 600-mile front line, it said.
Novikov and Stepanenko write for the Associated Press. AP writers Emma Burrows in London and Jan. M. Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.
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