In total, throughout the day, “The enemy carried out nine missile strikes, 39 air strikes, (fired) up to 30 projectiles from multiple rocket launchers,” summed up in the evening the General Staff of the Ukrainian army.
In addition to the capital, the suburbs of Kharkov and Sumy (northeast), Donetsk (east), Dnipropetrovsk (central-east), Kherson and Mikolaiv (south) were hit, it added.
The attacks damaged critical infrastructure in three regions, including kyiv, leaving most of “hundreds of locations”, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal said.
The latter reported “five drone strikes” of alleged Iranian manufacture only in the capital.
The Russian army was pleased to have achieved all its objectives with “high precision weapons”.
In parallel, the Russian authorities reported that a supersonic fighter-bomber crashed in Yeisk (southwest) in a residential area near the border with Ukraine, causing at least six deaths and 19 injuries.
the apparatus fell on a huge building with nine floors and about 600 inhabitants, where an imposing fire originated that firefighters tried to put out.
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The Ministry of Defense indicated that it was a training flight and that there was a technical problem after “one of the engines caught fire on takeoff.” Even so, the authorities opened a “criminal investigation”.
– Drone attacks –
In kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky denounced the attacks launched by Moscow, which “kill civilians, hit houses and infrastructure”.
“The enemy can attack our cities, but he will not break us”, said Zelenski, who explained that among the victims “there is a family that was expecting a baby.”
Several drones flew over the central neighborhood of kyiv in the morning, while police officers fired at them with automatic weapons to shoot them down, AFP journalists saw.
“We have been here for maybe half an hour and four drones have fallen,” explained one of the policemen, Iaroslav, still nervous. “It’s a little scary, but it’s our job (…) We have to do it.”
The new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, who began his mandate on Monday, asked not to target civilians.
The attacks come a week after Russia launched a two-day bombing spree that hit towns across Ukraine, causing power and water cuts across the country.
The bombings left at least 19 dead and 105 wounded and sparked international outrage.
“It seems that now they attack us every Monday”, said taxi driver Sergiy Prikhodko outside the central train station in kyiv.
Last week’s bombings occurred, according to Putin, in retaliation for the explosion that damaged the strategic bridge linking Russia with the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow.
– Iran sanctions –
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, asked on Twitter that they impose more sanctions against Iran “for having supplied drones to Russia”.
Iran denies that it is supplying weapons to Moscow and insisted again on Monday that “it has not exported weapons to any of the parties to the conflict,” according to Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
After the attacks, the chief of staff of the Ukrainian presidency, Andriy Yermak, indicated that the country needed “more anti-aircraft defense systems as soon as possible.”
Yermak also welcomed the increase in military aid from the European Union (EU) to Ukraine and the launch of a training mission for its troops.
At a meeting of European foreign ministers in Luxembourg, the European bloc approved a training mission on its territory for 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers and the contribution of another 500 million euros for weapons to kyiv.
Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive in recent weeks that has allowed it to recover large swaths of territory in the east and south of the country.
The troops from kyiv are now closing in on Kherson, the only major Russian-held Ukrainian city north of Crimea. The region is one of four Ukrainian territories that Moscow claimed as annexed areas.
And in Belarus, an ally of Moscow, the Ministry of Defense announced that up to 9,000 Russian soldiers and about 170 tanks would be deployed on its territory to defend the country against what the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, considers possible threats from Ukraine.
