Kyiv: Russian missiles targeted Ukraine’s two biggest cities early Tuesday, damaging apartment buildings and killing at least five people after Moscow shunned any deal backed by Kyiv and its Western allies to end the almost two-year war.
The Russian barrage included more than 40 ballistic, cruise, anti-aircraft and guided missiles, officials said. Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 21 of them.
The attack injured at least 20 people in four districts of Kyiv, the capital, including a 13-year-old boy, according to Mayor Vitalii Klitschko. Officials said initial reports that a civilian had been killed in the Ukrainian capital were incorrect, and clarified that the wounded person was on life support in hospital.
In Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, the onslaught killed five and injured 48, including four minors, as the missiles damaged around 30 residential buildings and shattered hundreds of apartment windows in icy weather, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
Russia used S-300, Kh-32 and hypersonic Iskander missiles in the attack, he said.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the temperature in the city was minus 7 degrees Celsius (19 degrees Fahrenheit). An entire section of a multi-story residential building was destroyed, trapping an unknown number of people there, Terekhov said.
Kharkiv, about 30 km (18 miles) from the border with Russia, has often felt the brunt of Russia’s winter campaign of long-range strikes that commonly hit civilian areas.
The attacks keep Ukrainians on edge while the 1,500-km (930-mile) front line has barely budged. Both sides’ inability to deliver a knockout punch on the battlefield has pushed the fighting toward trench and artillery warfare. Analysts say the Kremlin’s forces stockpiled missiles at the end of last year to press a winter campaign of aerial bombardment.