Extract from ABC News
Russia's second missile assault on Kyiv this week has injured at least 53 people, and damaged homes and a children's hospital according to Ukrainian officials.
Key points:
- Homes, a children's hospital and a kindergarten are among the buildings reportedly damaged from Wednesday's strike
- Ukraine's national police said on social media that 18 people were hospitalised
- A Russian spy agency-linked hacker group claimed responsibility for an attack on Ukraine's biggest mobile network operator
The windows of residential apartment blocks were blown out and frightened residents streamed onto the street to assess the damage, which included a large crater in the ground and destroyed cars.
Ukraine's air defence systems downed all 10 ballistic missiles that targeted the capital at about 3am local time, Ukraine's Air Force said on the Telegram app.
Falling debris caused injuries and destruction in four of Kyiv's districts along the Dnipro River, which cuts through the capital.
Thirty-five buildings were damaged, according to the city's military administration.
Ukraine's national police said 53 people, including six children, had been injured by the attack.
Eighteen people have been hospitalised, it said in a social media post.
"There was no air raid siren. At around 4am, I heard an explosion. We fled to the corridor, (the explosion wave) threw me into the doors," Olena Ustinova, 45, a local administration clerk, told Reuters.
"I regained consciousness and started to shake the doors but they were blocked.
"I shouted for help from my balcony and emergency workers came to help me."
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was visiting Norway on Wednesday, said his main priority was to strengthen air defences.
His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, praised Western-supplied air defence systems and their operators.
"The effectiveness of Western weapons in the hands of Ukrainian soldiers cannot be doubted," Mr Yermak said.
The air force said it also shot down all 10 Russian-launched attack drones over the Odesa region in southern Ukraine.
Windows and entrances at a children's hospital in Kyiv's Dniprovskyi district were shattered by debris, but based on initial assessments, there were no casualties, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
"These (ballistic) missiles fly at a speed up to 8,000 kph," Mr Klitschko told Reuters.
Kyiv military administration chief Serhiy Popko said 17 people, including seven children, were evacuated from a residential building in the Dniprovskyi district after debris hit a building and nearby cars, causing a fire.
The attack followed a salvo of ballistic missiles that targeted Kyiv on Monday and injured four people.
There was no comment from Russia about Wednesday's attack, which also damaged buildings in Kyiv's Desnyanskyi, Darnitskyi and Holosiivskyi districts.
Russian hackers linked to spy agency claim cyber attack
A hacking group believed by Kyiv to be affiliated with Russian military intelligence claimed responsibility for a cyber attack that knocked Ukraine's biggest mobile network operator offline.
A group of activist hackers, or "hacktivists", called Solntsepyok said in a post on the Telegram messaging app that it carried out the cyber attack, and published screenshots appearing to show that the hackers had accessed Kyivstar's servers.
Russia has repeatedly denied being behind such cyber attacks.
Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protectorate (SSSCIP) said in a statement it was investigating the incident with the SBU domestic intelligence agency.
"Responsibility for the cyber attack was taken by one of the Russian groups whose activities are associated with the main directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation," it said, referring to Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.
"This once again confirms Russia's use of cyberspace as one of the domains of the war against Ukraine," it said, without naming the group that has claimed responsibility.
Earlier this year, the SSSCIP identified Solntsepyok as a front for a Russian hacking group dubbed "Sandworm" which has been previously linked to the GRU.
It was not immediately possible to contact the GRU for comment.
In its Telegram post announcing the hack, Solntsepyok thanked unidentified "concerned colleagues" at Kyivstar.
The SBU said on Tuesday that it had opened a treason case following the cyber attack.
"We attacked Kyivstar because the company provides communications to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as state bodies and Ukraine's security forces," that post said.
"To the other offices helping the Ukrainian Armed Forces: be prepared!"
On Tuesday, a source close to Kyivstar told Reuters that military communications had not been affected by the attack.
Sandworm has been tracked by cybersecurity researchers as one of Russia’s most powerful hacking groups, responsible for cyber attacks against Ukraine’s energy sector.
"They regularly launder their operations through paper thin hacktivist personas," said John Hultquist, who heads threat analysis at Google's Mandiant Intelligence.
"Sandworm is Moscow’s weapon of choice for cyber attacks. No other actor comes close in terms of the imminent threat they pose to critical infrastructure in Ukraine," he added.
In response to a request for comment from Reuters, a representative of Solntsepyok confirmed it had carried out the attack and referred to the internal Kyivstar documents posted to the groups’ Telegram channel.
The representative did not respond to further requests for comment, including whether Solntsepyok was connected to the GRU.
Tuesday’s digital blitz was one of the biggest cyber attacks since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Such attacks which cause widespread and tangible damage are rare and require techniques so sophisticated that they are usually the domain of state intelligence agencies.
In its Telegram post, Solntsepyok said it destroyed more than 10,000 computers and 4,000 servers in the attack against Kyivstar, including its cloud storage and backup systems.
Reuters
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