Rocket strikes multi-storey apartment building in Kiev

A shell hit an apartment building on Lobanovsky Avenue in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The shell hit the 17th and the 8th floor, no one was killed.

"On February 26, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine received information that on Lobanovsky Avenue, 6A, a shell hit a multi-storey apartment building (17-18th floor),” the State Emergency Service said in a statement.

Kiev Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko later said on his Telegram channel that it was a rocket that struck the building.

A surveillance camera video of the moment of the rocket strike appeared on the Internet.

Alexey Ramm, a military observer for Izvestia newspaper, suggested that it could be a rocket from the Strela-10 system, which was part of Ukraine's air defense system.

According to the specialist, the rocket is seen flying in parallel to the ground with an insignificant height gain. This suggests that the rocket was launched from a ground launcher. In addition, there is a trail of white smoke behind the rocketю This indicates that the rocket engine was still running, and the rocket had just been launched.

Aircraft rocket engine runs for no more than a couple of seconds, whereas in the case of anti-aircraft guided missiles, the engine can run for almost a minute or even longer, the specialist believes.

To crown it all, the scale of the destruction suggests that the rocket warhead was rather weak.

"Most likely, the video shows a rocket of the Strela-10 anti-aircraft system. In order to hit the target, the operator is supposed to visually point the sight at an air object, so that the thermal guidance rocket would then take it over as a target for tracking. One may assume that under restrained urban conditions, an inexperienced operator of the Strela system tried to take over a target for tracking and simply launched it, without capturing the target properly in the heat of the fight. As a result, the rocket was launched into free flight and hit the building,” the expert said.