By Marc Santora

KYIV — The US Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, issued an urgent warning Wednesday (20) morning that Russia might launch “a significant air attack” closing the embassy and telling employees to shelter in place.

Air raid alerts are a daily fact of life in Ukraine and the capital often comes under drone and missile attacks, but the embassy rarely issues such a specific alert or shuts down.

The warning came one day after Ukraine’s military used American-made ballistic missiles to strike into Russian territory for the first time, after receiving long-sought authorization from President Joe Biden to do so. The Kremlin had long warned that such strikes would be treated as an escalation, and on Tuesday (19) vowed to respond.

“We will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference Tuesday. “And we will react accordingly.”

In its message Wednesday, the US Embassy said it had “received specific information” about a potential attack but did not offer details. It urged Americans to pay special attention to air raid alerts.

Just before 2:00 p.m., Ukrainian authorities warned about a potential ballistic missile attack and urged people in Kyiv to seek shelter.

As alarm spread and Kyiv residents hurried to shelters, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency released a statement suggesting that Russia was seeking to stoke panic by spreading rumours about the scale of a potential attack.

Russia has launched a number of deadly strikes on Ukraine this week, including an hours-long nationwide assault Sunday (17) that killed at least nine people. A rocket strike later that day on a residential building in the city of Sumy, near the Russian border, killed 10 people. Then an attack in the port city of Odesa killed 11 more people, and another Monday night in the Sumy region killed 11. Scores were injured in the attacks.

Overnight and into Wednesday morning, air raid alerts warned of incoming attack drones for most of the country. Ukraine’s air force said that it had destroyed 56 drones before noon.

One explosion rang out in Kyiv just before 8:00 a.m. when air defence teams intercepted a drone, according to Ukrainian officials, who said falling debris had started a fire at a multi-storey residential building. There was no immediate information on casualties.

Such drone attacks have become increasingly common in recent weeks. During 1,000 days of war, Russia has targeted the capital with more than 2,500 missiles and drones, according to data collected by the city’s military administration. Around half of the attacks took place this year.

Since the war began, there have been about 1,370 alerts in Kyiv, according to city officials. Those have lasted more than 1,550 hours in total — meaning that if residents spent every hour of every alert in a shelter, they would have spent more than two months in bunkers.

Many people seek shelter in subways, basements and underground facilities like parking garages when the air raid warnings wail.

But there is often little warning when ballistic missiles, which travel at several times the speed of sound, are fired at the capital. The time between launch and impact can be minutes.

And many large-scale Russian attacks — like the one Sunday, which targeted Ukraine’s power grid — feature a combination of drones, and cruise and ballistic missiles aimed to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences.

Both Russia and Ukraine appear to be stepping up their attacks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.

Trump has said he wants to bring a swift end to the war in Ukraine but has not said how leading to speculation over whether he will maintain the same level of robust military support provided to Ukraine under the Biden administration.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has said he believes that the only way to force Russia into peace negotiations is by showing strength and shoring up Ukraine’s position on the battlefield — with the help of its allies. He drove that point home again in an interview with Fox News that was broadcast Tuesday evening.

As long as Europe, the United States and the people of Ukraine remain united, he said, they could force President Vladimir Putin of Russia to accept a just and lasting peace.

“Putin is weaker than the United States of America,” Zelenskyy said. And Trump, he added, “is much stronger than Putin.”

Biden’s decision to allow the Ukrainians to use the American-made ballistic missiles to strike inside Russia was a major change in US policy — just two months before Trump heads to the White House.

Ukraine had been pleading for permission to use them for months, saying it needed longer-range capabilities to hit the Russian war machine. The weapon, known as the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, can reach farther into Russia than any other Ukrainian missile.

But Ukraine has also been developing its own long-range weapons. Zelenskyy said Tuesday that the country would produce at least 30,000 long-range drones next year.

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s military said it had used drones to target military installations in several regions of Russia overnight, including in the Novgorod region near the village of Kotovo, more than 400 miles from the Ukrainian border.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had shot down 44 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 20 over the Novgorod region. Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.

Residents of Kyiv remained on edge even after the afternoon warning about a potential ballistic missile strike was lifted.

Olga Zasiadvovk, 28, said that as a Ukrainian living in Kyiv who has endured countless bombardments, it was only natural that “a constant sense of danger” created anxiety.

With rumours swirling that a particularly large attack might be imminent, she said, she was nervous but trying to control her emotions.

“Understanding that I don’t know when this will end, I’m learning to manage it,” she said.

-New York Times