Ukraine says it defeated Russian drone attack on Kyiv

KYIV (Reuters) - Russia launched its fifth air attack this month targeting Kyiv and air defence systems destroyed all drones on approach to the capital, Ukrainian military officials said early on Wednesday.

Ukraine's Air Force said air defence systems destroyed 18 out of 19 attack drones launched at Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson and other regions of Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how many were destroyed over Kyiv.

"According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or destruction in the capital," Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian air force also said that Russia attacked the Kharkiv region in the east with two surface-to-air guided missiles. There were no casualites as a result of the assault, it added.

Ukraine's prosecutor's office said on Wednesday morning that nine people, including four children, were injured in an overnight Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian southern city of Kherson.

"So far, nine residents have been reported injured, including four young children. Civilian objects and residential buildings were damaged," the prosecutors said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Russia started carrying out strikes on Ukraine's energy, military and transport infrastructure in regions far from the front line in October 2022, six months after Moscow troops failed to take over Kyiv and withdrew to Ukraine's east and south.

Most of southeastern Ukraine remained under air raid alerts at 2300 GMT, with Ukraine's air force saying that the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad regions were under threat of Russian ballistic missile attacks.

(Reporting by Oleskand Kozhukhar and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Jamie Freed, Stephen Coates and Michael Perry)