Four injured by Russian strikes in Ukraine’s Kyiv

Four people were injured and buildings damaged in Russian strikes on a residential area of the Ukrainian capital, officials said Wednesday, nearly a month into Moscow’s invasion.

The strikes hit a western district of Kyiv, about five kilometers (three miles) from the frontline where advancing Russian troops were slowing, AFP journalists reported.

Artillery strikes left one building completely destroyed and several surrounding buildings were pockmarked with shrapnel and had their windows blown out.

“The enemy fired on Kyiv again — buildings in Sviatoshynskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts were damaged,” city officials said in a statement on Telegram.

“Rescuers and medics are working on the spot. There are fires in several residences and in high-rise buildings. Four people were injured,” the statement added.

Volodymyr Okhrimenko, a resident of one of the damaged buildings, told AFP he had narrowly escaped the attack.

“It was a strike on the roof. I walked out of the house to smoke a cigarette, and when I went back inside it happened. The ceiling collapsed,” he said, firefighters working around him to put out the blaze.

“I lost consciousness for a few moments,” the pensioner said, with a shocked look on his face and a scratch on his forehead.

The man’s sister who lives in the same building was suffering from smoke inhalation.

“I just had time to take some documents and get out, before the house caught fire,” she said.

The attack on Kyiv come a day after at least one person was killed when a drone attacked a scientific institute in the capital.

A huge Russian missile strike on the Retroville shopping mall late Sunday left eight dead.