Kyiv said Friday that Russian forces had fired four Kinzhal hypersonic missiles at an airfield in western Ukraine, an attack that regional officials earlier reported had left one child dead.
“One Kh-47 missile was destroyed within the Kyiv region. The rest hit near the airfield. Civilian facilities and infrastructure were hit, and one of the missiles hit a residential area,” Ukraine’s air force said in a statement.
The brunt of fighting between Ukrainian forces and invading Russian troops has played out in the industrial east of the country but Moscow sporadically launches strikes targeting infrastructure in western Ukraine too.
Prosecutors earlier said the strikes in the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk had struck near a house in the regional hub of the same name.
“The missiles hit territory near a private house in the Kolomyia district, where a family with three children lived. An eight-year-old boy died as a result of the shelling,” their statement said.
Prosecutors added they were clarifying information about other possible victims.
Kinzhal missiles make up part of an arsenal of weapons that Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed were indestructible because of the speed at which they travel.
The air force said that Russia had launched the missiles from Tula, some 180 kilometers south of the Russian capital and Lipetsk, around 460 kilometers from Moscow.