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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed a deadly barrage of strikes towards a number of Ukrainian cities Monday, smashing civilian targets together with downtown Kyiv the place not less than six individuals had been killed amid burnt-out vehicles and shattered buildings. The onslaught introduced again into focus the grim actuality of warfare after months of easing tensions within the capital.
Ukraine’s Emergency Service mentioned a complete of not less than 11 individuals had been killed and 64 had been wounded within the morning assaults throughout Ukraine — the most important and broadest because the early days of the warfare.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose army invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, mentioned the strikes had been in retaliation for what he known as Kyiv’s “terrorist” actions — a reference to Ukraine’s makes an attempt to repel Moscow’s invasion forces, together with an assault final weekend on a key bridge, prized by the Kremlin, between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Putin vowed a “robust” and “proportionate” response ought to Ukraine perform additional assaults that threaten Russia’s safety.
“Nobody ought to have any doubts about it,” he mentioned.
Monday’s intense, hours-long assault by Russia marked a sudden army escalation in its assault on Ukraine. It got here a day after Putin known as the explosion Saturday on the large bridge connecting Russia to its annexed territory of Crimea a “terrorist act” masterminded by Ukrainian particular companies.
Putin, talking in a video name with members of Russia’s Safety Council, mentioned the Russian army launched “precision weapons” from the air, sea and floor to focus on key vitality and army command amenities.
However the sustained barrage on main cities hit residential areas and significant infrastructure amenities alike, portending a serious surge within the warfare amid a profitable Ukrainian counteroffensive in current weeks.
The missile strikes marked the most important and most widespread Russian assaults in months. Putin, whose partial mobilization order earlier this month triggered an exodus of tons of of 1000’s of males of combating age from Russia, stopped in need of declaring martial regulation or a counterterrorism operation as many had anticipated.
Moscow’s warfare in Ukraine is approaching its eight-month milestone, and the Kremlin has been reeling from humiliating battlefield setbacks in areas of jap Ukraine it’s attempting to annex.
Blasts struck within the capital’s Shevchenko district, a big space within the heart of the town that features the historic outdated city in addition to a number of authorities workplaces, Mayor Vitali Klitschko mentioned.
A few of the strikes hit close to the federal government quarter within the symbolic coronary heart of the capital, the place parliament and different main landmarks are situated. A glass tower housing workplaces was considerably broken, most of its blue-tinted home windows blown out.
Residents had been seen on the streets with blood on their garments and palms. A younger man sporting a blue jacket sat on the bottom as a medic wrapped a bandage round his head. A girl with bandages wrapped round her head had blood everywhere in the entrance of her shirt. A number of vehicles had been additionally broken or utterly destroyed. Air raid sirens sounded repeatedly throughout the nation and in Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned Russian forces launched dozens of missiles and Iranian-built drones towards Ukraine.
The Basic Employees of the Ukraine Armed Forces mentioned 75 missiles had been fired towards Ukrainian targets, with 41 of them neutralized by air defenses.
The targets had been civilian areas and vitality amenities in 10 cities, Zelenskyy mentioned in a video handle. “(The Russians) selected such a time and such targets on function to inflict probably the most injury,” Zelenskyy mentioned.
The morning strikes despatched Kyiv residents again into bomb shelters for the primary time in months. The town’s subway system stopped practice companies and made the stations accessible as soon as extra as locations for refuge.
Whereas air raid sirens have continued all through the warfare in Ukraine’s main cities throughout the nation, in Kyiv and different areas the place there have been months of calm many Ukrainians had begun to disregard their warnings and go about their regular enterprise.
That modified on Monday morning. The assaults arrived in Kyiv initially of the morning rush hour, when commuter visitors was starting to choose up. A minimum of one of many automobiles struck close to the Kyiv Nationwide College seemed to be a commuter minibus, often called a “marshrutka” and which is a well-liked albeit typically crowded different to the town’s bus and metro routes.
Close by, not less than one strike landed within the fashionable Shevchenko Park, leaving a big gap close to a youngsters’s playground.
Among the many targets hit was a pedestrian bridge often called the Klitschko bridge — a landmark in central Kyiv with its glass panels. Closed-circuit tv footage shared by an adviser to Ukraine’s inside minister confirmed an enormous explosion because the bridge was apparently focused. A person seen on the bridge simply earlier than the explosion is seen working away after the blast.
Elsewhere, Russia focused civilian areas and vitality infrastructure as air raid sirens sounded in each area of Ukraine, besides Russia-annexed Crimea, for 4 straight hours.
The Ukraine Emergency Service mentioned the strikes left 4 of the nation’s areas — the Lviv, the Poltava, the Sumy and the Ternopil area — utterly with out energy, whereas in the remainder of Ukraine energy outages had been patchy.
Related Press journalists in Dnipro metropolis noticed the our bodies of a number of individuals killed at an industrial web site on the town’s outskirts. Home windows within the space had been blown out and glass littered the road. A telecommunications constructing was hit.
Ukrainian media additionally reported explosions in a variety of different areas, together with the western metropolis of Lviv, which has been a refuge for many individuals fleeing the combating within the east, in addition to in Kharkiv, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr and Kropyvnytskyi.
Kharkiv was hit 3 times, Mayor Ihor Terekhov mentioned. The strikes knocked out the electrical energy and water provide. Vitality infrastructure was additionally hit in Lviv, regional Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi mentioned.
Three cruise missiles launched towards Ukraine from Russian ships within the Black Sea crossed Moldova’s airspace, the nation’s International Affairs Minister Nicu Popescu complained.
A day earlier, Putin had known as the assault on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea a terrorist act carried out by Ukrainian particular companies. The bridge is essential to Russia strategically, as a army provide line to its forces in Ukraine, and symbolically, as an emblem of its claims on Crimea. Nobody has claimed accountability for damaging the 12-mile (19-kilometer) -long bridge, the longest in Europe.
Amid the onslaught, Zelenskyy mentioned on his Telegram account that Russia is “attempting to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth.”
The assaults introduced out a contemporary bout of worldwide condemnation for Russia.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, mentioned the Group of Seven industrial powers will maintain a videoconference Tuesday on the scenario which Zelenskyy will handle. Germany presently chairs the G-7.
The assaults introduced a refrain of shock in Europe. French President Emanuel Macron expressed “excessive concern.” British International Secretary James Cleverly tweeted that “Russia’s firing of missiles into civilian areas of Ukraine is unacceptable.”
“Russia as soon as once more has proven to the world what it stands for. It’s terror and brutality,” European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen.
Some feared Monday’s assaults could be the primary salvo in a renewed Russian offensive. Ukraine’s Ministry of Training introduced that each one faculties in Ukraine should swap to on-line courses not less than till the top of this week. Ukrainian International Minister Dmytro Kuleba broke off his Africa tour and headed again to Ukraine.
In an ominous transfer, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko introduced Monday that he and Putin have agreed to deploy a joint “regional grouping of troops” amid the escalation of combating in Ukraine. He provided no particulars as to the place the grouping will probably be deployed, when and what for.
Lukashenko repeated his claims that Ukraine is plotting an assault on Belarus, sparking fears the stage is being set for preemptive motion by Minsk.
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Sabra Ayres in Kyiv, Vasilisa Stepanenko in Kharkiv, and Justin Spike and Yesica Fisch in Dnipro, contributed to this story.
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Observe the AP’s protection of the warfare at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
