Russia targeted western-supplied tanks and other armored vehicles that were housed at a facility in Kyiv during fresh attacks in the Ukrainian capital. Explosions rocked Kyiv on Sunday breaking the relative calm the city had seen over the last few weeks.

Several missiles hit the parts of Kyiv in the first assault on the capital for weeks. Footage showed several large explosions, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry claimed that missiles hit a former car-repair facility being used to house T-72 tanks and other armored vehicles supplied by Ukrainian allies, NEXTA reported. Columns of black smoke could be seen above the city.

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Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said “one victim was hospitalised” in the incident. 

Over the last few weeks, there had been less action in Kyiv as Russian forces concentrated their attacks on Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

Sunday’s strike comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to start hitting harder so long as the US continues to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles.

“We will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting,” Putin said in an interview last week. US President Joe Biden approved an additional $700 million in military aid – including everything from rocket systems to spare parts for vehicles and other equipment – to Ukraine last week. 

“All this fuss around additional deliveries of weapons, in my opinion, has only one goal: to drag out the armed conflict as much as possible,” Putin said in his TV interview.

Ukraine and the West believe the rockets could help Kyiv fight Russian forces.

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“We understand that this supply [of advance rocket systems] from the United States and some other countries is meant to make up for the losses of this military equipment,” Putin said. “This is nothing new. It doesn’t change anything in essence.”

Meanwhile, earlier on Sunday, Ukraine’s nuclear energy company Energoatom also warned that a Russian cruise missile “flew critically low” to the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, in the south of the country, apparently heading for Kyiv.

Russian forces “still do not understand that even the smallest fragment of a missile that can hit a working power unit can cause a nuclear catastrophe and radiation leak,” the company said.