Russia Attacks Kyiv With Ballistic Missiles

Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with drones and ballistic missiles before dawn on Saturday, officials said, killing at least three people in central Kyiv as part of a broader assault that targeted towns and cities across the country.

Air-raid alarms were still sounding as emergency crews raced to search for the dead and wounded — a grimly familiar routine in a nation that has been battered by relentless Russian bombardments for nearly three years.

Ukraine’s Air Force said that four ballistic missiles and 39 attack drones had been used in the assault and that two of the ballistic missiles had been shot down in the Kyiv region. Although the city comes under drone attack almost nightly, ballistic missile launches targeting the city are less frequent.

The pre-dawn attack ruptured a water main near the city center, sending water cascading through the streets around the battered facade of the Lukianivska subway station. Nearby, smoke was rising from a charred van with at least two burned bodies inside.

As a blaze burned deep inside an industrial building across the street, some firefighters were trying to drag debris away from the front of a heavily damaged McDonald’s. Others concentrated on the huge chunks of glass, debris and insulation covering the sidewalk outside the subway station — typically a place where residents seek safety during attacks.

As investigators walked up and down the street, reaching into the rushing water to look for pieces of shrapnel, some shopkeepers tried to get through a police cordon.