Russia carried out extensive missile attacks that killed at least five people and wounded as many as 130 in Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday.
Ukraine's air force said Russian forces used 35 drones and 99 missiles, launched by air and sea, and that Ukrainian air defenses downed all the drones and 72 of the missiles.
Among the missiles Ukraine shot down Tuesday were Kinzhals, said General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's commander in chief. Russia fired 10, the most Russia has used in one attack, and Ukraine shot all of them down, Zaluzhnyi said. Kinzhals are air-launched, travel at 10 times the speed of sound and are expensive, which is why they are seldom used, he said.
Authorities issued hours of air alerts telling people to shelter from the attacks.
"Since December 31st, Russian monsters have already fired 170 Shahed drones and dozens of missiles of various types. The absolute majority of them targeted civilian infrastructure," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He noted that they were shot down with Western-supplied Patriot and National Advanced Surface to Air Missile systems.
He said Ukraine would work with "everyone around the world who values life" to bolster Ukrainian air defenses and hold Russia accountable.
"The terrorist state must feel the repercussions of its actions," Zelenskyy said.
Missile debris sparks fire
In Kyiv and the region, four people were killed and about 70 were wounded.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the falling debris from a downed missile injured at least 20 people and caused a fire at a multistory building in the Ukrainian capital. He reported multiple explosions in the city as air defenses responded to the wave of Russian rockets, with fires sparked in at least five districts.
The Russian barrage, which came during the morning rush hour, also cut off electricity and damaged gas lines in parts of Kyiv.
In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the city was under a "major missile attack."
Oleg Sinegubov, the head of the military administration in Kharkiv, said on Telegram that Russian strikes killed at least one person and injured more than 60 others.
Sinegubov said the attacks damaged residential and commercial buildings, in addition to infrastructure sites.
In neighboring Poland, the military said it dispatched four F-16 fighter jets to protect its airspace amid the Russian attacks.
Putin calls Ukraine's attack 'a terrorist act'
Tuesday's attacks followed a warning by Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia would intensify strikes on Ukraine following a deadly Ukrainian attack Saturday on the Russian city of Belgorod that killed 24 people and wounded more than 100 others.
During a Monday visit at a military hospital, Putin called Ukraine's attack in Belgorod "a terrorist act," accusing Ukrainian forces of targeting "right in the city center, where people were walking around, before New Year's Eve" and alleged they had "purposefully hit the civilian population."
He said Russia would continue to hit what he called "military installations" and added that he believed the "strategic initiative" in the drawn-out conflict in Ukraine was on the Russian side. He claimed that Moscow wanted an end to the almost two-year long war but, he stressed, "only on our terms," according to Russia's state-run TASS news agency.
Some material for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
