At least seven people have been killed after Russia launched a barrage of drones across Ukraine on March 23, local Ukrainian officials and emergency services said.
The attacks, including in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, come ahead of ceasefire negotiations in Saudi Arabia, when Ukraine and Russia are expected to hold indirect talks, brokered by the United States, on March 24 to discuss a suspension of long-range weapons attacks on energy facilities and civilian infrastructure.
A Ukrainian delegation is expected to meet with US officials in Saudi Arabia, a day before the indirect talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Ukraine plans to send technical teams to discuss the details of the partial ceasefire.
Russia has launched 147 drones across Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Ukrainian air defenses shot down 97 of the drones and 25 others failed to reach their targets due to Ukrainian countermeasures, the military said. The attacks hit the Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernivtsi, Odessa and Donetsk regions, as well as Kiev.
Three people, including a five-year-old child, were killed and ten others injured in drone strikes in Kiev, the city's military administration said. Air raid warnings have been heard across the Ukrainian capital for more than five hours. The Russian drones that were not shot down were flying at a lower altitude, evading air defenses. The drones crashed into residential buildings.
Two residential buildings in the Dnipro region were engulfed in flames after debris from downed drones fell on them, the head of the Kiev military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said. A woman was killed in the fire in the nine-story building, emergency services said.
Another person was killed after a warehouse caught fire in Holosivski.
Meanwhile, four more people were killed as a result of Russian attacks in the Donetsk region, said the regional governor, Vadym Filashkin, including three who died after an airstrike in the town of Dobropilya, which is on the front line.
Through a statement on social media, Ukrainian President Zelensky said that attacks like the one in Kiev are daily events in Ukraine.
"This week alone, over 1,550 bombs, almost 1,100 drone strikes and 15 missiles of various types have been used against our people. New solutions and pressure on Moscow are needed to stop these attacks and this war," he said.
Also on March 23, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had shot down 59 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 29 over the Rostov region and 20 over Astrakhan. In Rostov, one person was killed and a car burned after being hit by a Ukrainian drone, the region's acting governor, Yuri Slyusar, said./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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