Kyiv, other cities hit as Russia launches over 100 missiles, says Ukraine

Explosions rocked Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Thursday as Russia launched over 100 missiles in a series of attacks, said Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych.

The rockets hit Kyiv around 8.15 am (11.45 am Indian Standard Time), Arestovych wrote on Facebook, but did not disclose the names of other battered cities, stating that doing so would mean “correcting the enemy’s fire”.

According to Reuters correspondent and Ukrainian authorities, explosions were also heard in Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Lviv and Odesa.

Ukrainian authorities said three citizens were wounded in the attack on Kyiv. The country’s Air Force said the attacks involved sea-based and air-based cruise missiles as well as an overnight assault by kamikaze drones.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 16 missiles hit the city. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said officials were trying to find out what places had been hit and whether there were any casualties.

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said that 90% of his city was left without electricity following the attack.

In Odesa, air defence units shot down 21 missiles but the fragments of one missile hit a residential building, its governor Maksym Marcheno said. He added that no casualties were reported.

Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in its missile strikes. But President Vladimir Putin had admitted that Russian forces have been targeting Ukraine’s critical energy facilities.

The latest Russian assault comes after the Kremlin rejected a Ukrainian peace plan that wants Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and pull out all its troops.

However, on Wednesday, Kremlin had said that Kyiv must accept Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

Of these four places, Russia had withdrawn its troops from Kherson less than a month after annexing it. However, since then it has bombarded the city.