Drone strikes hit central Kyiv as U.S. poised to send Patriot missile battery to Ukraine

Ukrainian authorities said they thwarted a Russian attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region Wednesday as their air defence system intercepted and destroyed 13 explosive-laden drones, although wreckage from some of them damaged five buildings. No casualties were reported.

The attacks underline how Ukraine's biggest city remains vulnerable to the regular Russian attacks that have devastated infrastructure and other population centres in recent weeks, mostly in the country's east and south.

But they also highlighted Ukraine's claims of increasing efficiency in intercepting drones and missiles and the possibility that Patriot missiles from the U.S. may further boost defences.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a brief video statement, said the "terrorists" fired 13 Iranian-made drones, and all were intercepted. Such drones have been part of the firepower along with rockets, missiles, mortars and artillery that Russia uses to target power stations, water facilities and other public utility equipment.

The snow-covered capital remained largely calm after the attack, which occurred around daybreak.As the working day began, authorities sounded the all-clear.

The head of the Kyiv city administration, Serhii Popko, wrote on Telegram that the attempted strikes came in two waves. Wreckage from the intercepted drones damaged an administrative building and four residential buildings, he said.

'I don't understand why'

A blast left the three-storey tax office building in the central Shevchenkivskyidistrict with a gaping hole in the roof and blew out windows in parked cars and in a neighbouring building.

Cleanup crews were on site quickly to shovel away the rubble and roll out plastic sheeting to cover the blown-out windows in freezing temperatures. One man, unfazed, pushed his son on a swing set on a nearby playground as the crews did their work.

Another parent, Anton Rudikov, said hisfamily was sleeping when they heard an explosion nearby and smashing windows.

"Thank God the children were not affected" beyond their fright, said Rudkov, whose daughters are 13 and 18 years old. But why Russia would attack his neighbourhood left him perplexed.

"I didn't do anything bad to them, but it struck my house. From where? I don't understand why," he said.

Residents told Associated Press reporters they saw fragments from a drone which contained the words "For Ryazan." The Kremlin claims Ukraine was responsible for an attack last week on a military base in the Ryazan region of western Russia.

Barrage of Russian airstrikes

Ukrainian authorities have trumpeted their ability to down Russian weapons. But strikes in some areas continue to cause deaths and havoc, particularly in areas close to the front lines in the east and south. In the southern city of Odesa, drone strikes temporarily shut off the power last week. Kyiv has suffered comparatively little damage.

During a previous round of Russian volleys on Dec. 5, more than 60 of 70 strikes were intercepted by air defence systems, including nine out of 10 targeting the capital and the surrounding region, Ukrainian officials have said.

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'They're ... trying to terrorize and break the Ukrainian population with these air attacks,' said retired general Rick Hillier of Russia's relentless attacks on Ukraine's electrical grid. 'I think they're also trying to create a burden for the EU ... in trying to create millions of refugees from Ukraine going across the borders into the EU itself.'

More air defence help was apparently on the way.U.S. officials said Tuesday the United States was poised to approve sending a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, agreeing to an urgent request from Ukrainian leaders. The Patriot would be the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the West has provided to Ukraine to help repel Russian aerial attacks since Russia invaded Feb. 24.

The Russian Embassy in Washington said a Patriot missile delivery would be "another provocative step which could lead to unpredictable consequences."

It added that this would cause "colossal damage" to Russian-American relations and other "global security risks."

U.S. officials said last week that Moscow has looked to Iran to resupply the Russian military with drones and surface-to-surface missiles.

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The war in Ukraine in Ukraine has fueled a surge in drone manufacturing, including in Riga, Latvia, where one company is keeping up with the demand by hiring war refugees to work on the assembly line.

5 million have returned home: UN

The damage from Russian strikes has interrupted electricity, heating and water supplies as winter approaches. Yet the UNmigration agency said more than five million people who were displaced within or outside Ukraine since Russia invaded in late February have returned.

The International Organization for Migration said a Nov. 25-Dec. 5 phone survey of 2,002 respondents in Ukraine also found that only seven per cent were considering leaving.

Providing other estimates, Ukraine's human rights chief said Wednesday that close to one-fifth of the country's pre-war population sought refuge abroad during the war. Dmytro Lubinets said 7.9 million Ukrainian citizens left the country and 4.9 million were internally displaced. Lubinets did not specify how many Ukrainian refugees have returned.

Prisoner swap includes U.S. national

Prisoners of war werealso on the move. The head of Zelenskyy's office, Andriy Yermak, said that 64 Ukrainian soldiers and a U.S. national living in Ukraine were released in the latest prisoner swap with Russia. In a Telegram post, he identified the "U.S. citizen who helped our people" as Suedi Murekezi.Yermak did not elaborate.

What if any role Murekezi was serving in Ukraine wasn't immediately clear. A U.S. official speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the Ukraine conflict confirmed Murekezi was released. The official said Murekezi had been living in or near Kherson and Russian forces had detained him.

A group claiming to have helped rescue him Project Dynamo,an international search, rescue, aid non-profit organization said Murekezi was a U.S. air force veteran whom Russian forces detained in June. The group said he was freed Oct. 28, and then lived in Donetsk.

In other developments Wednesday:

• Ukrainian authorities said they have discovered evidence that children were tortured during Russian occupation. Lubinets, Ukraine's human rights chief, said "torture chambers for children" accused of resisting Russian forces were found in recaptured areas of northeastern and southern Ukraine. Lubinets said he saw two torture sites in Balakliya, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, and spoke with a boy who said he was held for 90 days and cut with a knife, burned, and subjected to mock executions.
  
• The Ukrainian presidential office said Russian forces struck 10 regions in central and southeastern Ukraine, destroying two university buildings in Kramatorsk. It said highrise apartment blocks, a hospital and a bus station were also damaged. Russian forces also shelled eight towns and villages in the southern Kherson region, the presidential office reported.
  
• The International Atomic Energy Agency said it would station nuclear safety and security experts at Ukraine's nuclear power plants to prevent a nuclear accident.The UN nuclear watchdog already has deployed a permanent expert mission to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The plant, Europe's biggest nuclear power station, has faced repeated shelling. Its six reactors have been shut down for months.Three other nuclear plants are located in Ukrainian-held territory, as is the decommissioned Chernobyl plant.

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