Russia attacks cities across Ukraine at rush hour in apparent revenge attacks According to Reuters

By Max Hunder and Jonathan Landay

Russia attacked cities across Ukraine during rush hour on Monday morning, killing civilians and destroying infrastructure in apparent revenge after President Vladimir Putin announced an explosion on a bridge leading to Crimea. is a terrorist attack.

Cruise missiles tore through busy intersections, parks and tourist attractions in downtown Kyiv, with intensity unprecedented even as Russian forces attempted to capture the capital early in the war.

Explosions were also reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the rush hour attacks appeared to have been deliberately timed to kill people.

In Kyiv, the body of a man in jeans lies on the street at a major intersection, surrounded by flaming cars. In a park, a soldier cut through the clothes of a woman lying on the grass to try to heal her wounds. Two other women were bleeding nearby.

A huge crater sits next to a children’s playground in Kyiv Central Park. The remains of a rocket were apparently buried, fuming in the mud.

More rockets hit the capital early the next morning. Pedestrians swarm for shelter at entrances to subway stations and inside parking tunnels.

By mid-morning, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that Russia had fired 75 cruise missiles and that Ukraine’s air defense systems had shot down 41 of them. At least five people were killed and 12 injured in the capital, Kyiv city police said.

Security camera footage posted online shows a cloud of shrapnel and flames engulfing a glass-bottomed pedestrian bridge over downtown parkland, one of the popular tourist attractions. most famous of Kyiv. The bridge appeared to be empty at the time.

“They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth,” Zelenskiy said on the messaging app Telegram. “The sirens of the air raid did not subside throughout Ukraine. Missiles hit. Unfortunately, people died and were injured.”

He then said the attacks were aimed at two main targets: energy infrastructure and people.

“Such timing and such targets were specifically chosen to do as much damage as possible.”

There was no immediate announcement from Moscow of what they were targeting. Russia denies intentionally targeting civilians.

TALK WITH MISSILES

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “Putin’s only tactic is to terrorize the peaceful cities of Ukraine, but he will not disrupt Ukraine. This is also his response to all who want to speak. Talk to him about peace: Putin is a rocket-talking terrorist.”

At one of Kyiv’s busiest road junctions, a large crater exploded at the intersection. Buildings were damaged and two cars and a van near the crater were completely destroyed, charred and pitted by shrapnel.

Windows were blown out of buildings at Kyiv’s main Taras Shevchenko University. National Guard troops in full combat gear and carrying assault rifles lined up outside an education union building.

“The capital is under attack by Russian terrorists! Missiles have hit objects in the city center (in the Shevchenkivskyi district) and the Solomyanskyi district. The air strikes are howling and so the threat continues. perform,” mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on social media.

“The central streets of Kyiv have been cordoned off by law enforcement officers, rescue services are at work.”

He later said critical infrastructure had been affected.

The airstrikes come two days after an explosion damaged the only bridge spanning the Kerch Strait to the Crimean peninsula, which Putin on Sunday called “an act of terror aimed at destroying infrastructure” the civil class is extremely important”.

“This was devised, executed and ordered by Ukrainian special services,” he said in a video on the Kremlin’s Telegram channel.

Ukraine did not claim responsibility for the explosion on the bridge but celebrated it. Senior Russian officials have asked the Kremlin for a swift response ahead of a meeting of Putin’s security council on Monday.

KILLING ‘CRISIS’

Russian television commentators have increasingly called for retaliation against Ukraine, with the military leadership facing public criticism for the first time as Russian forces are hit back on the battlefield.

The bridge, opened by Putin himself, is a major supply route for Russian forces in southern Ukraine and a symbol of Russia’s control of Crimea, which it claimed to be annexed after The army seized it in 2014.

Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev announced before the council meeting that Russia should destroy “terrorists” responsible for the attack.

State news agency TASS quoted him as saying “Russia can only deal with this crime by directly destroying terrorists, as is the practice in other parts of the world. This is what the Russian people do. expectations”.

Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, said Sunday a vehicle exploded on the bridge, passing through Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia and Russia’s Krasnodar region.

In southeastern Ukraine, Russian shelling overnight destroyed another apartment building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Oleksandr Starukh said early Monday. A city official said at least one person died and five were injured in the attack.

The pre-dawn air strikes were Russia’s third missile attack on apartment buildings in four days in the city, Ukraine’s capital, in one of four partially occupied regions that Russia has said will merged this month.

Russia has faced major defeats on the battlefield since early September, when Ukrainian forces overran the front lines and recaptured territory in the northeast and south.

Putin responded to the losses by ordering the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists, announcing the annexation of occupied territory and repeatedly threatening the use of nuclear weapons.