(Kyiv) Russia carried out new “massive” strikes against Ukraine on Tuesday morning, causing the death of at least five civilians and injuring around a hundred people mainly in Kyiv and Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian authorities who called for urgently for their Western allies to accelerate their deliveries of military equipment.
As usual, the Russian army assured that it had only targeted military installations which were all “destroyed” using long-range missiles and explosive drones.
“The inhumane Russians strike again,” commented President Volodymyr Zelensky in a short speech broadcast on social networks, after denouncing “Russian terror”.
Ukraine’s military said Russia fired 99 missiles early Tuesday, 72 of which were shot down.
” The horror ”
In Kyiv, a building in the Solomianskii district, near the center, was hit and many windows were destroyed. On site in the morning, firefighters and rescuers were busy, smoke escaping from several apartments.
Two people died and 49 others were injured, announced its mayor Vitali Klitschko.
” It is the horror ! », proclaims Galina Soloviova, a 79-year-old woman on the spot.
“There is nothing left in the apartment: no more water, no more electricity, no more gas. Everything was blown away,” says his daughter, Violetta, 56. “It’s nothing more than a pile of ruins…”
Another resident of the building, Valentina Guerda, 53, points the finger at the Russians: “We were brothers, but we became enemies,” she says. “So I hope the same thing happens to them as to us! “.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry, for its part, deplored “massive bombings”, specifying that “residential buildings, warehouses, essential infrastructure” had been hit.
PHOTO EFREM LUKATSKY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vehicles destroyed and buildings heavily damaged by Russian strikes in Kyiv on January 2.
In the Podil district of the Ukrainian capital, fires were still underway at midday on at least two sites, noted an AFP journalist.
In addition, two civilians died and 16 other people were injured, including a child, in another Russian strike in the Kyiv region, according to Ukrainian emergency services.
And more than 86,000 residents of Kyiv and its surrounding areas remained without electricity as of early afternoon following the bombings, the Energy Ministry said.
Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, located in the northeast, not far from the Russian border, was the target of “at least four strikes”, in which a 91-year-old woman lost her life. , according to the governor of the region Oleg Synegubov. 47 other people were injured, added the regional prosecutor’s office.
PHOTO SERGEY BOBOK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A residential building damaged by a missile strike in central Kharkiv.
In retaliation for these morning attacks, the Ukrainian army fired two salvos of missiles at midday on the Russian border region of Belgorod, assured the Russian Ministry of Defense, according to which all 17 warheads were ” destroyed.”
At least one person was killed on Tuesday and five injured after Ukrainian strikes on the Belgorod region, according to its governor, a bombardment which comes after Russia launched around a hundred missiles against Ukraine.
A man was killed by shrapnel when a projectile exploded next to his car, the governor of Belgorod, a Russian region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Telegram. Five people were injured in other incidents.
“Give weapons!” »
This new series of Russian strikes comes the day after Vladimir Putin’s threat to “intensify” strikes in Ukraine in retaliation for the unprecedented attack on the Russian city of Belgorod on Saturday.
PHOTO EFREM LUKATSKY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Firefighters try to put out a fire after a Russian attack in Kyiv.
In a press release, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, called on the West to “react decisively” to the Russian bombings.
The minister therefore urgently called for the acceleration of Western deliveries of “additional air defense systems, combat drones of all types” and “missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers”.
“Give weapons to Ukraine!” », Implored on X the Secretary General of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council Oleksiï Danilov, Kyiv facing difficulties in recent weeks in obtaining more military aid from its Western allies.
“It is urgent and crucial to support Ukraine now, to stop Putin,” said the American ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, on X.
In a press release, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, for her part deemed the Russian strikes “alarming” which left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians “without electricity [et] without water”, at a time when temperatures are negative in Ukraine.
However, almost two years after the start of its invasion, Russia seems determined to increase its air attacks.
Last Friday, a series of Russian missile attacks left around forty dead.
In total, since Sunday, the Russian army has launched “around 170 [drones explosifs] Shahed and dozens of missiles of different types,” Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.