Russia renews attacks on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv

Another military factory in Kyiv hit on Saturday, a day after Moscow warned it would renew attacks.

Russia stepped up air strikes on Kyiv on Saturday, hitting another military factory a day after Moscow warned it would renew attacks following two weeks of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital.

Smoke rose from the Darnytsky district in the southeast of the capital after what Moscow said were “high-precision long-range” strikes on the armaments plant.

The district has more than one million inhabitants.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said authorities were still determining whether anyone had been killed or injured in the attack.

A heavy police and military presence had been deployed around the factory, the day after a similar strike on a plant that produced the Neptune missiles, which Kyiv and Washington say sunk Russia’s Black Sea naval flagship on Thursday.

Russia, which used sea-based long-range missiles to hit the Vizar plant on Friday, said that the Moskva missile cruiser sank while being towed back to port after ammunition exploded on board.

Saturday’s strike on the Ukrainian capital was among the first since invading Russian forces began withdrawing from regions around Kyiv last month, instead turning their focus to gaining control of the eastern Donbas region.

According to Ukrainian member of parliament Sviatoslav Yurash, Kyiv continues to be attacked by rockets from Russia.

“They attack from the long range, they attack from aircraft, they have been firing rockets non-stop, even though they were pushed back across the border and they were defeated around Kyiv.

“The truth is that as far as Kyiv is concerned, we always have a threat of Russians coming back and trying to seize our capital.

On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that officials believe about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops have died so far in the war with Russia.

Speaking to CNN, Zelenskyy compared those numbers with what he said were 19,000 to 20,000 Russian fatalities.

Western officials estimate several thousand dead on the Russian side. Moscow recently gave a figure of about 1,350 soldiers killed in its own ranks.