Kiev ablaze as Russia targets Ukrainian war infrastructure (VIDEOS)

The Ukrainian capital and several other cities across the country were hit by a combined drone and missile strike early on Thursday morning, in what the Defense Ministry in Moscow called a response to terror attacks by Vladimir Zelensky’s government.

The first wave of blasts in Kiev was heard around 2am local time, followed by more explosions in multiple waves until 4am. Mayor Vitaly Klitschko urged residents to seek shelter as the capital’s air defenses engaged incoming targets.

Videos shared on social media showed numerous blasts and consecutive fires in and around the Ukrainian capital. Officials in Kiev reported damage at at least 28 locations, claiming that most of them were “residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.” The head of the local military administration, Timur Tkachenko, said two people were killed and another 16 were injured.

The exact locations and types of facilities hit are difficult to verify, as Ukrainian authorities tightly restrict information about strike sites and penalize those who share footage of impacts, except when civilian infrastructure is affected.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its strike with “high-precision long-range weapons” targeted “military industry enterprises and facilities and the fuel and energy facilities in the city of Kiev and the Kiev region, as well as military airfields and other infrastructure in the Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava, Cherkasy, and Chernigov regions.”

Moscow previously pledged to conduct “systematic and consistent strikes” on Kiev’s military installations, drone manufacturing sites, command posts, and “decision-making centers” in retaliation for deadly “terrorist attacks.”

In recent weeks, Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone raids deep into Russian territory, often hitting residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. On Tuesday, a six-month-old baby was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in Moscow Region, while last week 12 people were injured in a strike on a WWII museum in Rostov Region. Last month, Kiev launched one of its largest drone attacks on Moscow, hitting an oil refinery in the capital and injuring 17 people, including two children.

READ MORE: West living in ‘bubble of lies’ over Ukrainian attacks on civilians – Moscow (VIDEO)

Russia maintains that it only targets military and dual-use installations in response to Ukraine’s indiscriminate “terrorist attacks.”

Kiev routinely accuses Russia of deliberately hitting civilian sites, but it has a long history of using civilian installations, including warehouses, public buildings, and agricultural and industrial facilities, for military purposes.

Ukrainian media recently exposed a drone plant at a film studio hit by Russia. Over the course of the conflict, Kiev has taken considerable steps to decentralize its weapons production chain, creating small-scale assembly sites that mainly produce FPV and fixed-wing long-range drones from components supplied from abroad.