Flash of light in night sky above Kyiv: UFO, NASA satellite or IRIS-T?

A bright flash of light was seen in the sky over Kyiv on April 20 overnight. Air raid sirens went off and explosions were heard in a number of Ukraine-controlled regions the same night as well.

It was later reported in Ukraine that the flash might have occurred due to the crash of an American satellite. Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky's Office, urged not to look for UFOs in the sky. He also said that an air defence system was operating above the city. Yermak deleted his post almost immediately, though.

Sergei Popko, the head of the Kyiv city military administration, said that the flash of light occurred as a NASA space satellite was crashing down to Earth. The air raid was announced to avoid casualties from falling debris.

Yuriy Ignat, a representative of Ukrainian Air Force command, said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine could not yet confirm such reports.

It is worthy of note that NASA's decommissioned scientific satellite Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) is expected to burn up in the atmosphere in the near future indeed. However, it is unlikely that specialists will let it happen above a densely populated area.

A NASA representative later denied Kyiv's version. According to NASA, RHESSI satellite was still in orbit at the time when the incident with the flash of light was reported. The US space agency is tracking its path in cooperation with the US Department of Defense. The risk of harm to anyone on Earth is low, NASA said.

On April 19, German publication Der Spiegel reported that Ukraine received a second IRIS-T air defense system and 16 guided missiles for it from Germany. In total, Kyiv is to receive four such systems from Berlin. Ukraine also expects other air defence systems to be supplied from Norway (NASAMS), USA (Patriot) and France (SAMP/T).

One may assume that the flash of light in night sky above Kyiv could come from one of those systems that Kyiv could be testing.