Russia has pounded the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv with missiles, officials said, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to avenge what Moscow said was a Ukrainian attack on the city of Belgorod that killed 24 civilians.
Russia barraged the Ukrainian capital with waves of missiles during the morning peak-hour, cutting off power in parts of the city and sending debris from downed weapons falling across the area.
“Explosions in the capital,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app, urging people to stay safe.
Ukraine’s air force said earlier that it had destroyed all 35 attack drones that Russia launched after midnight targeting several cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that the loud explosions heard in the city were the work of air defence systems engaged in repelling the attack.
Falling drone debris sparked a fire in the Desnianskyi district, he added.
The district, on the east bank of the Dnipro River is Kyiv’s most populous.
Mr Klitschko said that gas pipelines were damaged in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district and electricity was cut off in several buildings of the capital.
Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said emergency services were also dispatched to the Holosiivskyi district along the west bank of the Dnipro.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, Mr Popko said on Telegram.
The attacks came after Mr Putin said yesterday that Ukraine’s strikes on Belgorod “will not go unpunished”.
They kept most of Ukraine under air raid alerts for hours.
Mr Klitschko said that gas pipelines were damaged in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district and electricity was cut off in several buildings of the capital.
The city of Kharkiv was also under a “massive missile attack,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
The full scale of the Russian missile attack was not immediately clear.
The assault follows Russia’s largest air attack on Ukraine on Friday that killed at least 39 people.
Russia said that Ukraine launched its attack on Belgorod from the Kharkiv region, just across the Russian border.
