Russia has launched a massive wave of strikes targeting cities across Ukraine in retaliation for an attack on the Kerch bridge linking Russia and Crimea.
Barely hours after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, denounced the bridge attack as an “act of terrorism” that he blamed on Ukraine’s secret services, missiles slammed into the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, during morning rush hour, striking a major road junction and a park. Early reports said at least eight people had been killed.
Guardian correspondents in Kyiv heard at least nine missiles fly in and half a dozen loud detonations over the course of an hour and a half.
Explosions also shook the cities of Lviv, Ternopil and Dnipro after overnight strikes hit the southern city of Zaporizhzhia for the third night in a row. According to reports, some of the targets hit in the Lviv area were parts of Ukraine’s key energy infrastructure.
The attacks follow several months in which the Ukrainian capital was not targeted, leading to a relative return to normality in the city.
The last attack on Kyiv was in June. But unlike previous attacks that mostly hit Kyiv’s outskirts, Monday’s strikes targeted several locations in the very centre of the city.
BBC correspondent Hugo Bachega was live on air as some of the missiles flew over the city.