Five wounded in Kyiv by largest ever drone attack on Ukraine - officials

KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine's capital city took the brunt of what the country's air force described as Russia's largest drone attack of the war on Saturday, leaving five people wounded as the continuing rumble of air defences and explosions woke residents.

The attack, which used Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones, began hitting different districts of Kyiv in the early hours of Saturday, with more waves coming as the sun rose.

A spokesman for Kyiv's city administration told public broadcaster Suspilne at least 40 drones had been downed.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko, writing on the Telegram app, said the attack had injured five people, including an 11-year-old girl, and damaged buildings in districts all across the city.

Fragments from a downed drone had started a fire in a children's nursery, he said.

The target of the attack was not immediately clear, but Ukraine has warned in recent weeks that Russia will once again wage an aerial campaign to destroy Ukraine's energy system, as it sought to do last winter.

Ukraine's energy ministry said nearly 200 buildings in the capital, including 77 residential ones, had been left without power as a result of the attack.

(Reporting by Max Hunder in Kyiv; Additional reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

By Max Hunder