KYIV, Ukraine — The Kyiv region of Ukraine was hit by an airstrike early Thursday that is believed to have been delivered by so-called kamikaze drones, a regional official said, adding to concerns about Russia’s increasing use of the self-destructing weapons.
There were no injuries, according to the region’s governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, who did not specify the locations that were hit, citing security concerns. But the use of such weapons has left many people on edge in an area of Ukraine that until this week had largely been spared since the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February.
Mr. Kuleba said on the Telegram social media app that three “kamikaze,” or self-destructing, drones had been used in the attack. Rescuers were working at the scene, he added, urging people to remain in shelters until an alert was lifted, which came later on Thursday morning.
Russia has been deploying dozens of Iranian-made drones as part of a scaled-up offensive on civilian and infrastructure targets far from the front lines. Ukraine’s military said this week that its air defenses were managing to shoot down a significant number, but not all, of the drones.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said in an intelligence assessment on Wednesday that the drones were not fulfilling Russia’s war aims, because they are “slow” and “easy to target.” But they are still causing destruction and sowing fear. Last week, drones landed in Bila Tserkva, a town about 50 miles south of Kyiv, hitting civilian infrastructure.
Ukraine’s Center of National Resistance, a government website that offers guidance on how to help the war effort, said this week that Russia had brought Iranian instructors into occupied areas of Ukraine to instruct Moscow’s forces in the use of the drones. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, said the instructors were probably members or affiliates of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the primary operator of Iran’s drone inventory.
In the region around Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, air-raid sirens rang out repeatedly on Tuesday and Wednesday, signaling that a missile or drone with the capacity to hit the area was in the air. The capital had not been hit by a strike since Monday, but the sudden targeting of the city and other sites that day left many people scrambling for shelters in a way that they had not done in months.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, said that critical infrastructure facilities had been hit by the drones on Thursday. The strikes have wrought significant damage on Ukraine’s electrical system as a number of vital power connections have been hit.
