Russia pelted Ukraine with missiles during the morning rush hour, killing at least one person in Kyiv and damaging critical infrastructure in the Black Sea Odesa region, authorities said, cited by Reuters.
The Ukrainian air defense has shot down 47 out of a total of 55 Russian missiles fired at Ukraine today, reported the Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff, General Valery Zaluzhny, quoted by Reuters.
Moscow used X-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, as well as X-101, X-555, Caliber and X-59 missiles, in the attack, Zaluzhny said on his Telegram channel. 20 of the missiles were shot down in the area of the capital Kyiv, he added.
“The goal of the Russians remains unchanged – to exert psychological pressure on the Ukrainians and destroy critical infrastructure,” the general wrote, adding: “But we will not break!”
Residents of Kyiv hid in the capital’s metro stations during a nationwide air alert before Russia launched another series of airstrikes on the power grid.
The missile attacks were preceded by nighttime drone strikes, a day after Ukraine secured promises of heavy battle tanks from Germany and the United States to bolster its troops, a move that angered Moscow.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said six Tu-95 fighter jets took off from the Arctic Murmansk region in northern Russia and fired missiles. Kyiv authorities said air defenses had shot down all of more than 15 Russian missiles fired at the capital, but the threat had not passed and citizens should not leave shelters.
Minutes later, loud explosions rocked two districts of Kyiv.
City officials said a 55-year-old man was killed and two people were injured when the building struck buildings outside residential areas in southern Kyiv.
There is also damage in the central Vinnytsia region and elsewhere.
There is already information about two damaged objects of the key energy infrastructure in Odesa region, the regional military administration reported in “Telegram”.
Two rockets were spotted over the territory of Mykolaiv region, governor Vitaly Kim announced on the Telegram channel.
“Missiles are flying into the interior of Ukraine. At least two were spotted northwest across Mykolaiv Oblast,” Kim wrote.
Ukraine’s largest private energy producer DTEK announced that it is preemptively shutting down electricity supply in Kyiv, the surrounding region and Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions due to the risk of a missile attack.
