Russia says its overnight Ukraine strike was a response to Kyiv’s ‘terrorist acts’

Ukrainian authorities say Russian drones, missiles have pounded Ukrainian capital Kyiv, ​other cities

Firefighters work at a site of a Russian drone strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Photo: REUTERS

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that its massive overnight ​strike on Ukraine was a response to what it ‌called “terrorist acts” against targets inside Russia and said it had struck a range of Ukrainian military targets.

Ukrainian authorities said that Russian drones ​and missiles had pounded the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and ​other cities early on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people ⁠and wounding more than 100 following days of warnings ​about Moscow’s plans for a major assault.

“Overnight, in response to ​terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime, the armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive strike using high-precision long-range air-, land-, and ​sea-based weapons,” the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement.

It said Russia ​had used hypersonic missiles and drones to attack seven Ukrainian regions including ‌Kyiv, ⁠Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv, successfully targeting sites useful to the Ukrainian armed forces such as fuel and transport facilities and military airfields.

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The Kremlin warned last week that Russia would start to carry out “systematic strikes” on ​targets in Kyiv ​in retaliation ⁠for what it said was a devastating Ukrainian on a student dormitory in Russian-held Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, which killed 21 people.

Ukraine said ​it had targeted a drone command centre ​in the ⁠area, not students. Putin said on Monday evening that Kyiv had “opened a new page in a series of crimes” with the ⁠dormitory strike ​and with a later strike on an ​apartment building in a Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region. Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians.

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