Russia used Belarus’ airspace last night to attack Kyiv, Ukraine says
Fire at the 11th Century Dormition Cathedral
June 15, Pozirk. Russia used Belarus’ airspace for a massive attack on Ukraine last night, Andrii Demchenko, spokesman for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, has said in televised comments.
Nine people have been killed and several others injured in a wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine, with a major religious landmark in the capital Kyiv catching fire, officials say. The 11th Century Dormition Cathedral was significantly damaged.
“Last night the enemy’s tactic remained the same: the drones were launched from Russia’s territory and afterward were flying along the Ukrainian-Belarusian border,” Ukrinform quoted Demchenko as saying. “Some drones crossed into Belarus, using its airspace to subsequently penetrate deep into Ukraine, in particular through its Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions, and fly on toward western regions.”
Demchenko said that Russian drones swarmed the Chernihiv and Kyiv regions as they converged on the Ukrainian capital.
Drone and missile strikes set fire to buildings and cars and left more than 140,000 people in Ukraine’s capital without electricity, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The Kyiv strikes, which targeted several residential buildings, left at least 23 people wounded, while five others were wounded in Kharkiv.
Belarus’ opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja has condemned the Russian “barbaric” attack.
The Kyiv’s Lavra is not only stones and walls. “It is memory, faith, culture and the cradle of Christianity in our region, the place where the spiritual tradition was born that unites Ukrainians and Belarusians through the centuries,” she said on X.
