Russia unleashes biggest attacks in Ukraine

Russia retaliated on Monday for an attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its most widespread strikes against Ukraine in months, a lethal barrage that smashed civilian targets, knocked out power and water, shattered buildings and killed at least 19 people.

Ukraine’s Emergency Service said nearly 100 people were wounded in the morning rush hour attacks that Russia launched from the air, sea and land against at least 14 regions, spanning from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east. Many of the attacks occurred far from the war's front lines.

READ MORE

Explosions rock Ukrainian capital

UAE President to visit Russia tomorrow

Though Russia said missiles targeted military and energy facilities, some struck civilian areas while people were heading to work and school. One hit a playground in downtown Kyiv and another struck a university.

The attacks plunged much of the country into a blackout, depriving hundreds of thousands of people of electricity into Monday night and creating a shortage so severe Ukrainian authorities asked people to conserve and announced they will stop power exports to Europe starting on Tuesday. Power outages also often deprive residents of water, given the system’s reliance on electricity to run pumps and other equipment.

President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks in Kyiv. File photo

Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said the strikes had no "practical military sense” and that Russia’s goal was to cause a "humanitarian catastrophe.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his forces targeted key energy infrastructure and military command facilities with "precision weapons” in retaliation for what he claimed were Kyiv's "terrorist” actions - a reference to Ukraine's attempts to repel Moscow's invasion, including an attack Saturday on a key bridge between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Putin alleged the bridge attack was masterminded by Ukrainian special services.

Putin vowed a "tough” and "proportionate” response if further Ukrainian attacks threaten Russia’s security. "No one should have any doubts about it,” he told Russia’s Security Council by video.

Firefighters and police officers work at a site after a Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, on Monday. AP

The Russian president has been under intense domestic pressure to take more aggressive action to stop a largely successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and to react forcefully to Saturday's attack on the Kerch bridge, whose construction he used to cement his 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Putin's increasingly frequent descriptions of Ukraine's actions as terrorist could portend even more bold and draconian actions. But in Monday's speech, Putin — whose partial troop mobilization order last month triggered an exodus of hundreds of thousands of men of fighting age - stopped short of escalating his "special military operation” to a counterterrorism campaign or martial law. Zelensky has repeatedly called on world leaders to declare Russia a terrorist state because of its attacks on civilians and alleged war crimes.

Moscow’s war in Ukraine is approaching its eight-month mark, and the Kremlin has been reeling from humiliating battlefield setbacks in areas of eastern Ukraine it is trying to annex.

An injured woman receives medical treatment at the scene of a Russian shelling, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday. AP

The head of Ukraine’s law enforcement said Monday's attacks damaged 70 infrastructure sites, of which 29 are critical. Zelenskyy said that of the 84 cruise missiles and 24 drones Russia fired, Ukrainian forces shot down 56.

Blasts struck in the capital’s Shevchenko district, which includes the historic old town and government offices, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Some of the strikes hit near the government quarter in the capital's symbolic heart, where parliament and other major landmarks are located. A glass-covered office tower was significantly damaged, with most of its blue-tinted windows blown out.

Zelenskyy, in a video address, referred to the rush hour timing of Monday's attacks, saying Russia "chose such a time and such targets on purpose to inflict the most damage.”