Missile blasts rocked Kyiv Monday morning in an apparent reprisal for the attack on a key bridge that connects Russia to occupied Crimea. The blasts which interrupted a crucial re-supply route for the Russian army in the south of Ukraine were a symbolic and logistical hammer blow to President Putin’s efforts to keep hold of illegally annexed Ukrainian territory.
Moscow labeled the bridge blasts a “terrorist” act, and vowed to strike back.
Air raid sirens sounded throughout the Ukrainian capital in the wake of the explosions which represent the most serious attack on the city since Russian tanks first rumbled over the Ukrainian border in February. Reports suggest at least four missiles hit the city—one of which landed near a children’s playground, in a chilling re-run of a strike on a separate Kyiv playground in June.
Truck Bomb Rips Apart Crimea Bridge Leaving 3 Dead
Missile strikes were also reported in Lviv, Ternopil, and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, as well as in Dnipro in central Ukraine. Local media reports suggest that the strikes in Lviv hit a “critical infrastructure facility,” leaving the city without water or electricity in some areas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said energy infrastructure had been targeted across the country, while his military chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi claimed a total of 75 Russian missiles were launched on Monday, of which 41 were shot down by air defenses.
Columns of black smoke rose over Kyiv in the wake of the strikes, which appear to have had tragic consequences. Sharing a picture of the fiery aftermath of one of the blasts, Ukrainian lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko tweeted: “Just minutes from my home. Just 20 minutes ago. What is Russia trying to hit? The national university? The park? Or the playground?”
“Cowards fighting playgrounds, children and people,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office, wrote on Telegram. “This is another signal to the civilized world that the Russian question must be solved by force.”
Emergency service crews were photographed tackling the blaze at the scene of one strike at an intersection near the city’s center. Windows at Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko University were shattered, and vehicles near the blast crater were reportedly totalled by shrapnel. Harrowing videos shared on social media show civilians narrowly avoiding the missiles which tore through the city, including one at the pedestrian bridge of the Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian people.
While no casualty figures were immediately available, a spokesperson for the state emergency services told Reuters there were dead and wounded in the wake of the attack.
“The capital is under attack from Russian terrorists!” Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko wrote on Telegram. “The rockets hit objects in the city center (in the Shevchenkiv district) and in the Solomyan district. The air alert, and therefore the threat, continues.” He later added: “There are victims.”
The strikes come after a huge explosion partially destroyed the Crimean Bridge over the Kerch Strait on Saturday, the day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday. The Russian leader described the attack on the 12-mile, $3.6 billion bridge “an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure.” He added that the strike on Europe’s longest bridge—which left three dead— had been devised and executed by the Ukrainian security services.
While Ukraine did not claim responsibility for the attack, its senior figures celebrated the news. The bridge, which was opened in 2018 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea four years earlier, symbolically and strategically emphasized Moscow’s control over the contested peninsula.
“Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelensky, tweeted after the bridge bombing.
Ahead of a meeting of Putin’s security council Monday, senior Kremlin figures vowed to avenge the bombing. “Russia can only respond to this crime by directly killing terrorists, as is the custom elsewhere in the world,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said ahead of the meeting, according to state media agency Tass. “This is what Russian citizens expect.”
The same day the bridge was attacked, Putin appointed the notorious General Sergei Surovikin to take command of the Ukraine offensive. The former head of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Surovikin has built a well-earned reputation for ruthlessness over the course of a bloodsoaked career. He led Russian forces in Syria in 2017, where indiscriminate airstrikes and attacks on hospitals appalled human rights organizations, but the Kremlin saw fit to make him a Hero of the Russian Federation, the nation’s highest honor.
He’s also known for breathtaking brutality against his own countrymen. During the August Coup in Moscow in 1991, Surovikin led a rifle division to smash through barricades set up by pro-democracy protesters. Three were killed during the violence, including one man crushed to death, but Surovikin was ultimately not charged for the deaths. He was later found guilty of illegally selling weapons, though the conviction was eventually overturned.
“For over 30 years, Surovikin’s career has been dogged with allegations of corruption and brutality,” British intelligence officials wrote in a recent report.
As well as the strikes in Kyiv, Russian shelling overnight destroyed an apartment building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Oleksandr Starukh said early Monday. At least one person was killed and another five were injured in the strike, officials said. The city—which has never been captured by Russian forces but is the capital of one of four regions Putin recently claimed to have annexed—has been hit by shelling attacks for several days. On Sunday, 13 people died and 87 others were injured when another apartment building was hit, Ukrainian officials. Ten children were among the wounded in the attack, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called “absolute evil.”
“Our courage will never be destroyed by terrorist’s missiles, even when they hit the heart of our capital,” Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov said Monday.
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