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Russian drones struck the Kyiv headquarters of Kyivstar, Ukraine's largest mobile carrier, over the weekend, as Moscow pressed a widening campaign against Ukrainian telecom and data center sites. Al Jazeera reported that Russia's Ministry of Defense claimed strikes on a Kyivstar data center and on another site run by Omega Telecom.
Kyivstar confirmed to Interfax Ukraine that its head office had been hit and reported no injuries, DCD reported. Russia's defense ministry said both Kyivstar and Omega Telecom were providing services to the Ukrainian army.
It was the third time this month that Russia has targeted Kyivstar. A drone attack struck a Kyivstar office in the capital on September 11, and a second company building in Kyiv was hit after that. Vodafone Ukraine also had one of its data centers attacked over the weekend, according to Reuters reporting cited by DCD. Vodafone had not commented publicly.
The strikes follow a Russian claim earlier in September that it hit the De Novo data center in Kyiv, one of the largest in the country. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said last week that Russia was targeting major data centers "seeking to disrupt the flow of information." He added that rapid alerts about missile and drone threats save lives.
The attacks on communications sites came amid heavy bombardment across Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched more than 2,200 attack drones, 1,630 aerial bombs and 38 missiles at the country over the past week. Eight people were killed in strikes nationwide on Sunday, including three in the northern city of Sumy, where a children's center was damaged.
In Kyiv, the city administration said 16 sites were damaged in drone attacks, including 12 houses, a warehouse and a production facility. Early on Monday, a guided aerial bomb hit an apartment block in Kharkiv, injuring at least 22 people, among them six children, according to the city's mayor.
Pressure on communications infrastructure has also reached beyond Ukraine's borders. Last week, a fire at a Starlink satellite station in Poland's Masovian province was described by Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski as a deliberate act of sabotage. He said the fire was designed to disable the station and disrupt internet access for several institutions, including the Ukrainian army.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday that Moscow intends to continue its military campaign. US-led talks to end the war have so far produced no breakthrough.
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