by Max Hunder and Jonathan Landy
Kyiv (Reuters) – Russia launched cruise missiles on dense Ukrainian cities on Monday, killing civilians and cutting off electricity and heat to the population in what the US called “terrible attacks”, the most widespread air strikes since the start of the war.
Missiles hit busy intersections, parks and tourist sites in the capital, Kiev, and explosions were reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in the central region, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said at least 12 people were killed and dozens injured, and they are suspending electricity exports to Europe as they try to end blackouts across the country.
Zelenskiy met with US President Joe Biden and then wrote on Telegram that air defense is “the number one priority in our cooperation.”
“We will do everything to strengthen our Armed Forces,” he said in an overnight speech. “We will make the battlefield more painful for the enemy.”
Biden told Zelenskiy that the US would provide advanced air defense systems. The Pentagon announced on September 27 that it will begin offering the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System within the next two months.
Thousands rushed to the shelters as the attack sirens sounded throughout the day. Dozens of cruise missile barrages fired from the air, land and sea were the largest wave of air strikes to hit targets far from the front line, at least since the first explosions on February 24 on the first day of the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he ordered long-range attacks after the weekend attack on the bridge connecting Russia with the annexed Crimean peninsula and threatened further attacks in the future if Ukraine reached Russian territory.
“It is impossible to leave these actions unanswered,” he said, referring to other unspecified attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian military intelligence said Russian airstrikes were ordered in early October. “Critical objects of civil infrastructure and central areas of densely populated Ukrainian cities were identified as targets,” he said.
Zelenskiy said Monday’s rush hour attacks were deliberately planned to kill people and crash Ukraine’s electricity grid. The prime minister said 11 major infrastructure targets had been hit in eight regions, and parts of the country lacked electricity, water or heating.
“They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth,” said Zelensky.
The body of a man in jeans lay at a major intersection in Kiev, on a street surrounded by burning cars. In a park, a soldier cut the clothes of a woman lying on the grass to treat her wounds. Two other women were bleeding nearby.
“These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets that had no military purpose. It shows once again the sheer brutality of Putin’s illegal war against the Ukrainian people,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement.
Two days ago, the Kremlin was humiliated by an explosion on the bridge it built after capturing the Crimea in 2014. Seeing the bridge as a military target supporting Russia’s war effort, Ukraine celebrated the explosion without taking responsibility.
As troops suffered setbacks on the battlefield for weeks, Russian officials faced the first sustained public criticism of the war as commentators on state television demanded increasingly harsher measures.
Ben Hodges, the former commander of US Army forces in Europe, said the scale of the attacks showed that Russia’s escalation plan may have been prepared before the attack on the bridge.
Missile explosions hit the capital again late in the morning. Pedestrians were crowded at the entrances of subway stations and parking lots.
Germany said Monday’s attack hit a building with its consulate in Kiev, but the site has not been used since the war began.
The European Union condemned the “barbaric and cowardly attacks” on Ukraine on Monday.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russia carried out at least 84 air and missile strikes, and Ukraine’s air defense shot down 43 missiles and 13 drones. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that it hit all the targeted targets.
source: Noticias
