Russia fired ballistic missiles at kyiv on Friday morning, killing one person, injuring nine others and depriving hundreds of buildings of heating, an attack carried out, according to Moscow, “in response” to a Ukrainian strike against a Russian factory with missiles Westerners.
“According to initial information, one person was killed,” Sergiï Popko, head of the military administration of the Ukrainian capital which had more than 3 million inhabitants before the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, said on Telegram.
The attack was carried out with five “Iskander-M/KN-23” ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian air force said, claiming to have shot them all down.
kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported nine injured, four of whom were hospitalized. “Emergency services are working everywhere,” assured the mayor.
The Russian army, for its part, said it attacked kyiv “in response” to a strike carried out on Wednesday against a Russian factory with Western missiles, a red line for Moscow.
“In response (…), a group strike was carried out this morning with long-range precision weapons against the control center (of the Ukrainian special services) SBU, the Luch design bureau, based in kyiv, which designs and manufactures Neptune missile systems,” the Russian military said in a statement.
“All the targets were hit,” she said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed that Moscow will respond to all Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil carried out using Western missiles, even threatening to relaunch its new Russian “Orechnik” missile.
– “Duel” –
This attack on kyiv came after an exchange of barbs between the master of the Kremlin and Volodymyr Zelensky.
During his annual press conference, Vladimir Putin on Thursday proposed a “high-tech duel of the 21st century” between his “Orechnik” missile, which he proposed to fire on the Ukrainian capital, and Western anti-aircraft defense means .
“We are organizing such an experiment, such a high-tech duel and we will see what will happen. It’s interesting,” he said.
“People are dying, and he thinks it’s ‘interesting’… Asshole,” President Zelensky fumed on X.
On Friday morning, AFP journalists in kyiv heard a series of explosions after alerts were raised by the Ukrainian air force about an imminent ballistic missile attack.
Shortly after, AFP saw smoke rising above several places in the capital.
Missile “debris” fell on three districts of the city, damaging in particular the heating system, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
“630 residential buildings, 16 health establishments” and around thirty schools “are deprived of heating”, at a time when temperatures are flirting with negative temperatures, he lamented.
An AFP photographer saw firefighters battling the flames in the middle of the street in a wealthy central district.
– “Burn in hell!” –
Authorities released images showing the roof of a partially destroyed luxury office building and charred car wrecks.
Safe and sound, Viktoria, a female doctor, who lives in the affected neighborhood, is overwhelmed by shock and anger. She rushed to the bomb shelter of her building after the army’s warning.
“Even in the shelter, bricks fell on my head. It’s just horrible when people start running from the street. I still don’t understand what happened here,” she says to the AFP.
“The Russkofs should burn in hell!” says the young woman.
The Russian army also carried out a “massive” bombardment at dawn on Kherson, a large city in the south of the country, using artillery, killing at least two people and injuring ten others, according to the regional administration.
The strikes also affected “essential” infrastructure, depriving “up to 60,000” homes of electricity, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.
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