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KYIV: Russia launched a fresh wave of drone and missile strikes on Ukraine in an overnight attack on Monday, killing one person, wounding seven others and causing multiple fires in Kyiv, city officials said.

Explosions lit up the night sky as the high-pitched whine of drone engines echoed off the walls of the capital’s high-rise buildings.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said rescuers and medics were working on sites across four districts of the capital. A subway station in central Kyiv, commercial property, shops, houses and a kindergarten were damaged, city officials said.

Ukraine’s air force said that Russia launched 426 drones and 24 missiles overnight across the country, but that only 23 drones hit their targets.

In another tense and sleepless night for Kyiv residents, many rushed to take shelter in underground stations. Explosions were heard across the city as air defense units engaged in repelling the attack.

At the scene of a strike, dazed residents stood amid shattered glass and scorched walls, surveying the damage after a drone hit the lower floors of an apartment building.

In the region of Ivano-Frankivsk, several hundred kilometers west of Kyiv, four people including a child were injured in the overnight attack, according to the state emergencies service.

The mayor of that region’s eponymous capital said the attack was the largest on his city since the start of the war in 2022.

Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv, said Russia had hit it with 12 strikes overnight. He said a civilian industrial facility had caught fire and windows had been blown out in an apartment building.

AFP: Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church on Monday demanded the criminal prosecution of the intelligence chief who was sacked for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners.
Church spokesman Cyril Gamini Fernando said they welcomed the dismissal days ago of Nilantha Jayawardena, who was head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) when jihadist suicide bombers attacked three churches and three hotels.
“This (sacking) is for the negligence part of it, but we want the authorities to investigate Jayawardena’s role in the attack itself,” Fernando told reporters in Colombo. “We want a criminal prosecution.”
He said evidence presented before several courts and commissions of inquiry indicated that the SIS, under Jayawardena, had attempted to cover up the actions of the jihadists in the lead-up to the April 21 attacks.
“Six years on, we are still looking for answers. We want to know the truth about who was behind the attack,” he said.
Jayawardena, 52, was dismissed Saturday from the police department, where he was the second most senior officer in charge of administration and on track to become the next inspector-general.
Court proceedings have revealed that both military and police intelligence units were closely linked to the home-grown jihadists, and some had even been on the payroll of the intelligence services.
The current ruling party, led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake, had while in opposition accused Gotabaya Rajapaksa of orchestrating the attacks to win the 2019 presidential election.
The once powerful Rajapaksa family has denied the allegations.
The attacks occurred despite a warning from an intelligence agency in neighboring India, which alerted Jayawardena 17 days before the devastating bombings.
He was found guilty of ignoring a series of alerts. More than 500 people were also wounded in the bombings, Sri Lanka’s worst jihadist attack on civilians.
Jayawardena was removed from his position as SIS chief in December 2019 but was later promoted to deputy head of the police force, overseeing administration.
However, he was placed on compulsory leave a year ago, pending the disciplinary inquiry, following repeated judicial orders to take action against him.