(Bloomberg) — Russia hit Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities early Monday in what appeared to be the most intense barrage of missile strikes since the earliest days of the war, a day after President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for an attack on a landmark bridge.
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“They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the Earth,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on his Telegram channel, urging people to stay in bomb shelters as air-raid alerts sounded in every region of the country except occupied Crimea. “Unfortunately there are dead and wounded.”
Russia fired 75 missiles, 41 of which were intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses, Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said on Twitter.
At least 10 explosions were reported in Kyiv. Russian forces continued a missile assault on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, local authorities said, and explosions took place in Odesa, Dnipro and Lviv in Ukraine’s west, far from the front lines. The governor of the southern Mykolaiv region, Vitaly Kim, said at least 47 rockets had been fired from southern Russia in a further wave of attacks.
The assault comes after Putin accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out an explosion Saturday that damaged a road and rail bridge connecting Crimea across the Kerch Strait to Russia. Ukraine hasn’t officially claimed responsibility for the blast on the multi billion-dollar span that was a signature project for Putin and intended to symbolize Russia’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula in 2014.
The strikes also come after Russia’s Defense Ministry announced the appointment of a new commander of its invasion forces in Ukraine, Air Force General Sergei Surovikin, following a series of recent military reverses. In the past he led Russian forces in Syria, where Kremlin troops carried out a bombardment campaign that destroyed much of Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city.
Russia is attacking energy infrastructure in regions across the country, Zelenskiy said in a video address from outside his presidential offices, warning of possible electricity outages. “Their second target is people. They intentionally chose the time so that most harm is done” as Ukrainians began the working week.
The bombardment of Kyiv and other population centers is retaliation for the attack on the Crimea bridge and also marks a new phase in Russia’s war, said Alexei Chesnakov, a former senior Kremlin official and adviser on Ukraine policy.
“We’ve entered a period of escalation,” Chesnakov said. Russia has “harsher options” to regain the upper hand following a series of recent military reverses for Putin’s forces in the war that’s now in its eighth month.
The missile strikes hit critical infrastructure in Kyiv and there are casualties, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a statement. At least five people were killed and 12 wounded in the center of the city, Anton Herashchenko, an advisor to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, said on his Telegram channel.
The Lviv region was attacked with 15 missiles, with some downed by Ukrainian air defense, regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Telegram. Air defenses in Odesa downed five drones — and the situation is “tense but there is no panic,” regional spokesman Serhiy Bratchuk said on TV.
Pro-Kremlin voices who’d urged Putin to respond harshly to the Crimea bridge explosion welcomed the strikes. “The place of the Devil is burned with fire,” Sergei Markov, a political consultant to the presidential staff, said Monday on Telegram, where he posted video footage of the bombardment of central Kyiv.
Putin plans to hold a regular meeting of his Security Council in Moscow on Monday. He blamed “Ukraine’s secret services” for the attack at a weekend meeting with the head of Russia’s Investigative Commission, Alexander Bastrykin, according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin website.
Russian authorities have said they’ve resumed rail services on the bridge that stretches for 19 kilometers (12 miles) across the Kerch Strait. The link is an important route for the Kremlin to resupply its forces in Crimea and in the southern Kherson region of Ukraine, where Russian troops are facing a Ukrainian military counteroffensive.
(Updates with Zaluzhnyi in third paragraph, details throughout)
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