Russia pounds Ukraine’s Kyiv after deadly strike on Academy of Sciences

Russian forces have again struck the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, hours after a drone hit the National Academy of Sciences in the historic centre of the city, killing at least two people.

Explosions were heard across Kyiv early on Tuesday, with Mayor Vitali Klitschko saying missile debris had fallen in the courtyard of one building while a second had caught fire in another part of the city.

The attacks come as Russia has begun hitting Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with faster, high-flying jet drones.

Emergency officials said the strike on the National Academy of Sciences on Monday killed two people, with one person’s body recovered from the rubble later in the evening.

Video shared online appeared to show a fast-moving drone slamming into the building at a steep angle and exploding, sending smoke into a clear sky. People were seen leaning out of windows as bright orange flames engulfed part of the building.

Volodymyr Horbulin, a former secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, told the public broadcaster Suspilne that he was at work at the academy when it came under attack. He said his assistant, who was near the building, was killed and that he was also slightly wounded.

The academy is near the German Embassy, a cathedral, the national opera and government buildings.

In a statement, the academy called the attack “Russian terror” and “barbarity” aimed at “peaceful people who were simply at their workplaces”.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of cynicism for hitting a scientific institution during the workday.

“Russia is deliberately expanding the boundaries of what it believes the world will tolerate,” he said in a statement, urging Ukraine’s allies to provide more air defences.

Jet-powered drones

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces also hit a medical facility in Kyiv on Monday. He said at least nine people had been killed in Russian drone strikes throughout the country, while more than 80 people were wounded.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was still having difficulty countering ‌the faster, high-flying Russian jet-powered drones.

“New interceptors are being actively tested,” he said. “Some combat groups are using them, but, of course, some details still need to be refined to achieve enough effectiveness and scale. We are speeding up the developers.”

According to the Ukrainian president, 90 of 120 drones fired on Ukraine on Monday were jet-propelled, rather than propeller-driven, with an interception rate for this type of drone at 57 percent.

Widening targets

Officials said the Russian strikes on Kyiv also targeted a pharmaceutical company and petrol stations. In other cities and regions, civilian facilities, businesses and communications infrastructure were hit.

In the southeastern city of Dnipro, a Russian drone attack on a business centre killed three people and wounded 19, according to officials. Another ⁠⁠person was killed in a logistics office in Synelnykove, southeast of Dnipro, the regional governor said.

Emergency services said an attack on infrastructure in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia wounded 32 people.

Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from Kyiv, said Russia has been hitting economic targets across Ukraine “in a rolling series of strikes that have been ongoing for six days now”, during the day and night.

“Data centres increasingly being hit, as well as digital and communications infrastructure,” he said. “Kyiv Star, the country’s biggest cell provider, was hit on Sunday, as was the second biggest, Vodafone Ukraine. The government is said to be preparing for the worst: a total blackout in communications should that come.”

The Russian attacks have brought Kyiv “firmly into the eye of this war”, Hull added.

Ukraine has also increased attacks on Russia, targeting oil refineries ‌‌as ‌‌well as online retailers to try to undermine revenues and support for Moscow’s war effort.

Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukraine struck Russian oil facilities in the Krasnodar region and two defence plants.

Both sides have denied deliberately targeting civilians.