President Zelensky said in a video message recorded in front of his palace in the heart of the city on Monday that Russia had two targets: energy supplies and civilians. “This is a difficult morning,” Zelensky said. “The time and targets were chosen to deal maximum damage.” On Monday morning, Ukrainian military officials said Russia fired a total of 75 rockets into Ukrainian cities, of which 41 were intercepted.
Ukrainian journalist Oleksiy Sorokin reported Monday morning that Kyiv was being fired on ‘non-stop’. The attacks started early Monday morning. Many people were on their way to work and school. First images on social media showed a huge column of smoke rising above the center of the city. Photos and videos soon followed of rubble streets, houses and cars on fire and a tower block in the financial district, shrouded in smoke, and a single veiled death. A video posted on Twitter showed a huge crater next to a children’s playground in Sevchenko Park, which is usually crowded with walkers and buskers. A rocket exploded near the touristic Klitschko Bridge. The glass bridge remained intact.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Shevchensky district in the center of the capital was particularly affected. Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, reported after 10 a.m. that there had been five dead and twelve injured so far. Most of the victims were walking on the street when they were hit.
The indiscriminate Russian shelling came two days after the spectacular attack on the Crimean Bridge and a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of “terrorism”. The bridge was badly damaged in an explosion, which Putin said was the work of Ukraine.
Big surprise
The missiles came as a big surprise, the center of Kyiv had not been hit for months until Monday morning. People hurriedly took cover in the subway and in air-raid shelters. BBC correspondent Hugo Bachega was just live on the channel when a rocket whizzed by. Moments later, there was an explosion in the distance. Bachega ducked and took refuge in a cellar, from which he continued his report.
With the attacks on Kyiv, Lviv and Dnipro, Russia wants to make the Ukrainians feel that they are not safe anywhere. In effect, Ukraine is thus returning to the beginning of the war, when all the cities of the country were hit by shelling.
retaliation
The attacks are seen as retaliation for the attack on the Kerch Bridge between Russia and Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, which was forcibly annexed by Russia in 2014. The bridge is important for supplying troops and weapons to Russian troops fighting in southern Ukraine. According to the British Ministry of Defense, the Russian occupiers are under heavy pressure from the Ukrainian army, which is carrying out a successful offensive in the east and south of the country.
The city of Zaporizhzhya has also been shelled again after 17 people were killed there on Saturday when Russian missiles destroyed an apartment building. Zaporizhzhya has been a target of shelling for weeks. The city, still in Ukrainian hands, is the capital of one of the regions that Putin unilaterally and illegally declared “Russian territory” last month. More than 60 people have been killed in the city in nine days, all of which are known to be civilians.