(Kyiv) Russia fired “99 missiles of various types” at Ukraine on Tuesday morning, 72 of which were shot down by air defense, said the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army Valery Zalouzhny, a “massive” attack which left at least five dead.
Ukrainian forces “destroyed 72 aerial targets”, including 10 Kinjal hypersonic missiles and three Kalibr cruise missiles as well as 59 Kh-101, Kh-555 and Kh-55 cruise projectiles, he said on Telegram .
According to him, Russia began its attacks in the night by launching 35 Shahed explosive drones on its neighbor, all of which were shot down.
Starting at 6 a.m. local time (11 p.m. Eastern Time), a series of missile salvos were fired from multiple directions, including Tu-95 strategic bombers, Mig-31 and Su-35 fighters. , he added.
“Civil and essential infrastructure, industrial and military sites have been attacked. The main target of these strikes was the Ukrainian capital,” said Mr. Zaluzhny.
In total, 61 missiles, including “around ten Kinjals”, were destroyed in the airspace of Kyiv and its region, said the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Two people were killed and several dozen others injured in an affected residential building in the Solomiansky district, near the center, according to the latest report published by the authorities.
PHOTO SERGEY BOBOK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A residential building damaged by a missile strike in central Kharkiv.
Two other people were also killed in the Kyiv region and a third in Kharkiv, the country’s second city located in the east, according to the authorities.
More than 250,000 people were also deprived of electricity in the Ukrainian capital following these bombings.
This new series of strikes comes the day after Vladimir Putin threatened to “intensify” strikes in Ukraine in retaliation for the attack of unprecedented scale on the Russian town of Belgorod on Saturday, which left 25 people dead and 109 injured.
Early Tuesday morning, more than ten powerful explosions were heard in Kyiv shortly after air alert sirens were triggered, causing buildings to shake in the city center, AFP journalists noted.
A building in the Solomianskiï district, near the center, was hit, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, causing a fire. A fire also broke out in a supermarket and a warehouse, according to the official.
“An elderly woman died in the ambulance,” succumbing to her injuries, Mr. Klitschko lamented on Telegram. In total, “27 people were hospitalized,” he added.
A street in this neighborhood was flooded, probably following damage to the pipes, noted an AFP journalist.
Firefighters and rescuers were working on the scene, with smoke escaping from several apartments in a nine-story building. Windows were blown out.
PHOTO ANATOLII STEPANOV, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Firefighters evacuate residents from a destroyed multi-story building after a missile attack in central Kyiv.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry denounced on Telegram “massive bombings” and said that “residential buildings, warehouses, critical infrastructure” had been hit.
“Nearly 260,000 consumers” are without electricity in “several districts” of Kyiv, said the Ministry of Energy, and more than 20,000 in the Kharkiv region (east), also targeted by Russian strikes.
The national operator, Ukrenergo, deplored on Telegram the “damage” to its networks.
Old lady killed in Kharkiv
Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, located not far from the Russian border, was targeted by “at least four strikes”, killing a 91-year-old woman, according to the region’s governor Oleg Synegoubov. The mayor of the city, Igor Terekhov, also reported “45 injured, including five children aged 6 to 13”.
Multi-story apartment buildings and civil infrastructure were damaged in the center of the city, according to regional authorities.
“Give weapons to Ukraine,” implored Secretary General of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council Oleksiï Danilov on Telegram, as Kyiv faces difficulties in recent weeks in obtaining more military aid from its Western allies.
However, almost two years after the start of its invasion, Russia seems to be once again intensifying its air attacks.
Last Friday, a series of Russian missile strikes left around forty dead. The next day, a Ukrainian bombing of the town of Belgorod left 25 dead, after which Vladimir Putin promised an “intensification” of attacks against his neighbor.
In total since Sunday, the Russian army has launched “around 170 [drones explosifs] Shahed and dozens of missiles of different types,” according to Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday.
PHOTO EFREM LUKATSKY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vehicles destroyed and buildings heavily damaged by Russian strikes in Kyiv on January 2.
Faced with escalating tensions in Ukraine, neighboring Poland announced in the morning that it had taken off F-16 fighters to “ensure the security” of its airspace.
“To ensure the security of Polish airspace, two pairs of F-16 fighters and an allied tanker aircraft were activated,” the operational command of the Polish army said in a statement.
A Russian village accidentally bombed by the Russian army
The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday acknowledged the accidental bombing of a village in western Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border, but assured that there were no casualties.
Russia carried out massive strikes against Ukraine on Tuesday morning, around the time of this incident.
Referring to the “accidental explosion of a munition” transported by an Air Force plane around 9 a.m. (1 a.m. Eastern time), the ministry told Russian news agencies that an explosion had shook the village of Petropavlovka, in the Voronezh region, 150 km from Ukraine.
“There are no injuries, but destruction was noted in seven buildings,” regional governor Alexandre Goussev said on Telegram, specifying that residents had to be taken care of in reception centers.