Kyiv evacuates two hospitals over fears of airstrike

The Ukrainian capital Kyiv evacuated two civilian hospitals on Friday after the head of the Belarusian KGB security service said they were housing soldiers, sparking fears of an airstrike.

The Kyiv city administration said a video widely circulated online, which it did not identify, contained a threat to attack the two facilities, including a children's hospital, on the false grounds that soldiers were located there.

"This is an absolute lie and a provocation by the enemy, which it is trying to use to attack the social infrastructure of the capital," the administration wrote on Telegram.
Ivan Tertel, the head of the Belarusian KGB, provided the addresses of the two Kyiv hospitals where he said fighters were "hiding behind the backs of children".
"Without a doubt, all of them will suffer well-deserved punishment, even though they have chosen Kyiv hospitals as their lair," he said in a speech broadcast by the state news agency Belta.

Kyiv's city authorities said they were moving patients and staff from both hospitals to other medical facilities.

While, Russia launched a barrage of missiles at Ukrainian power facilities on Saturday, hitting locations in the centre and west of the country, damaging equipment and injuring at least one energy worker, officials said.

DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, said its four thermal power stations were hit.

Since March 22, Russian forces have ramped up their bombardments of the Ukrainian power sector, attacking thermal and hydropower stations and other energy infrastructure almost daily.

Ukraine has lost about 80% of its thermal generation and about 35% of its hydropower capacity, officials aid. Its energy system was already weakened by a Russian air campaign in the first winter of the war that Russia launched in February 2022.

While, a suspected Ukrainian drone attack has damaged the Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region, forcing the plant to partially suspend operations, the state-run TASS news agency reported on Saturday. Earlier on Saturday, local authorities said that the Slavyansk refinery had been damaged in a Ukrainian drone attack.