Ukrainian forces shot down 13 drones on Wednesday, officials said, as Russia launched its first major drone attack on the capital in weeks.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said explosions had rocked the central Shevchenkivskyi district and that two administrative buildings had been damaged. An air raid alert was lifted three hours after it began, according to Reuters.
Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv's city military administration, said 13 drones had been destroyed.
In one Kyiv district, residents said they heard the sound of an Iranian Shahed drone - known as "mopeds" by Ukrainians because of the loud whirring of their engines - followed by a powerful explosion at a building next to their homes.
"I was already in the kitchen - I heard everything – I heard the buzzing 'moped' and I ran into the bathroom," said Yana, 39, who had been getting ready for work.
"I want this all to be over... For (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, that bastard, to die. Those are the only emotions."
One attack appeared to have ripped through a chunk of the roof of a nearby walled-off brick building. It was unclear what the building was used for.
Some of the windows of nearby residential buildings had been smashed. Bits of the roof were strewn in the snow along with bricks and other debris. Shocked residents, wrapped up against the cold, inspected the damage.
They said no one appeared to have been wounded.
The white tail of a drone could be seen in the wreckage. It had M529 Geran-2 written on it and a handwritten message "For Ryazan!!!", an apparent reference to what the Russians say was a Ukrainian attack on an airstrip deep inside Russia earlier this month.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to disarm and "denazify" its neighbour, has unleashed barrages of missile attacks on energy infrastructure since October. Ukraine's grid operator said energy facilities had not sustained any damage in Wednesday's attack.
Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said the attack was deliberately timed for when it was dark to make it harder to shoot the drones down.
"The air defences worked well." he said. "Thirteen (drones) were shot down."
"Well done, I am proud," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a brief video message, praising the air defence systems which he said appeared to have shot down all the drones.
