Vladimir Putin has celebrated his 74th birthday by launching a massive missile attack on Ukraine‘s capital of Kyiv.
The offensive killed two people on Wednesday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of ‘massive strikes’ heading towards the city.
The capital has come under increased attack in recent weeks as winter approaches, with air raid sirens wailing nearly constantly to warn of incoming Russian strikes.
Residents hunkered down in subway stations early on Wednesday, hauling duffel bags, sleeping mats and blankets, after the military issued alerts for Kyiv and other parts of the country.
‘We grabbed our things and came here, we live right next door,’ Iryna Rybalchenko, who works in a bank, said sitting on the platform wrapped in a dark hoodie and surrounded by bags.
‘The whole of Kyiv is in a state of fear. We were stuck at work today and everyone – our group chats, our bosses – were messaging us to be careful.’
The Russian attacks have targeted energy infrastructure and rail and road transport, including the bridges that connect the metropolis sprawled along both sides of the Dnipro river.
Fire and smoke rise in Kyiv during a Russian missile and drone strike
Smoke rises in the city during a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv
Russia’s defence ministry said today its forces had carried out a ‘massive strike’ on military-industrial facilities in Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions, using high-precision land-, sea- and air-launched weapons, as well as drones.
Targets included sites where the company Fire Point makes and stores Flamingo cruise missiles and medium- and long-range drones in Kyiv as well as regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kharkiv, it said.
The strikes targeted port and ship-repair infrastructure in the Odesa region, as well as vessels it said were being used in the interests of Ukraine’s armed forces, the ministry added.
Klitschko said two people died in a fire in the densely populated Darnytskyi neighbourhood as a result of Wednesday’s attack.
‘Two people were rescued while the fire was being extinguished,’ he wrote on Telegram.
‘The bodies of two people who had been killed were found.’
Zelensky had warned residents to monitor for air raid sirens, saying in his nightly address that ‘there is updated intelligence information regarding the preparation by the Russians of a massive strike.’
He insisted the military was ‘ready to respond, to the extent that our defence systems allow’.
Soon after Zelensky’s address, scheduled power cuts plunged parts of Kyiv into darkness to ease the pressure on the battered grid.
The Ukrainian air force warned that a ballistic missile was heading for Kyiv.
Firefighters work at the site of private car garages hit by a Russian missile strike
A resident with a dog looks on at the site of private car garages hit by a Russian missile strike
Military monitoring channels also said they expected a large-scale Russian attack, combining cruise and ballistic missiles with fast-moving jet-powered drones.
‘The children were absolutely terrified. Whenever there’s heavy shelling, we try to head underground,’ Daria Medvedeva, 36, said.
In the northeastern region of Sumy Oblast, Russian drone attacks killed two men and wounded scores of people, the National Police of Ukraine said.
It said the wounded included three children aged seven, 14 and 16, who were hurt when an apartment was hit.
Kyiv’s mayor warned last week the capital should now be on a war footing as the enemy was ‘tearing Kyiv apart’ with strikes on bridges and energy infrastructure.
Ukraine’s military had also warned a ballistic missile was heading to Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, where authorities said an attack damaged transport infrastructure.
