Russian missile barrage on Kyiv cuts heating
Published: 05:12 PM,Dec 20,2024 | EDITED : 09:12 PM,Dec 20,2024
People walk at the site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in central Kyiv, Ukraine. — Reuters
KYIV: Russian missiles targeted the Ukrainian capital Kyiv at sunrise on Friday, killing at least one person and cutting heating to hundreds of residential buildings in cold temperatures. Moscow said it attacked Ukraine as retaliation for a strike using Western missiles on a chemical plant in Russia earlier in the week. The strikes came as Russia's attack nears its three-year mark. The air force said it downed all five Iskander missiles Russia launched at the capital, but that debris caused damage in five districts.
The strikes killed a 53-year-old man and wounded 11 people, most suffering from shrapnel wounds, the police said. It also cut heating to 630 residential buildings, as well as a dozen of medical clinics and schools. The first explosions occurred around 7:00 am local time, said journalists in the Ukrainian capital, where officials had warned of a ballistic missile threat.
The Ukrainian think tank Defence Express said 'all the missiles were successfully intercepted, but in one case, the warhead failed to be destroyed and it exploded near a business centre in the city centre.' Moscow claimed responsibility for the overnight attack on Ukraine, which came a day after Russian leader Vladimir Putin had threatened to strike Kyiv. 'You know that such strikes on Russian territory have been carried out, and you know that the president has said that every time there will be a response,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. His comment came soon after the Russian defence ministry said that 'in response to the actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by its Western handlers, a combined strike with long-range precision weapons was launched today'. The ministry said it had targeted an office of the SBU security service and a defence industry site and that 'all the targets have been struck'.
Putin at a press conference on Thursday had suggested a 'hi-tech duel' over Kyiv to test his claims that Russia's new hypersonic ballistic missile, dubbed Oreshnik, is impervious to air defences. 'Let them set some target to be hit, let's say in Kyiv,' he said. 'They will concentrate there all their air defences. And we will launch an Oreshnik strike there and see what happens.' Putin's statement was the latest in a series of threats aimed at increasing pressure on the war-torn country, which has faced nearly daily aerial attacks for almost three years.
Meanwhile, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Friday condemned a Russian strike on a Kyiv building hosting multiple diplomatic missions including those of Portugal, Argentina, Albania and Montenegro. 'Another heinous Russian attack against Kyiv,' the European Commission chief posted on X in response. 'Putin's disregard for international law reaches new heights.'
Kyiv said on Friday it had received the bodies of 503 killed Ukrainian service members from Russia, in the latest return of remains that points to the high cost of fighting. The exchange of prisoners and bodies of killed military personnel remains one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv. 'The bodies of 503 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine,' the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement on social media. President Volodymyr Zelensky said this month that 43,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed and 370,000 had been wounded since the Kremlin dispatched its army to Ukraine. The Coordination Headquarters said on Friday that 403 bodies had been returned from the Donetsk region, which has suffered the worst of the fight. — AFP
The strikes killed a 53-year-old man and wounded 11 people, most suffering from shrapnel wounds, the police said. It also cut heating to 630 residential buildings, as well as a dozen of medical clinics and schools. The first explosions occurred around 7:00 am local time, said journalists in the Ukrainian capital, where officials had warned of a ballistic missile threat.
The Ukrainian think tank Defence Express said 'all the missiles were successfully intercepted, but in one case, the warhead failed to be destroyed and it exploded near a business centre in the city centre.' Moscow claimed responsibility for the overnight attack on Ukraine, which came a day after Russian leader Vladimir Putin had threatened to strike Kyiv. 'You know that such strikes on Russian territory have been carried out, and you know that the president has said that every time there will be a response,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. His comment came soon after the Russian defence ministry said that 'in response to the actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by its Western handlers, a combined strike with long-range precision weapons was launched today'. The ministry said it had targeted an office of the SBU security service and a defence industry site and that 'all the targets have been struck'.
Putin at a press conference on Thursday had suggested a 'hi-tech duel' over Kyiv to test his claims that Russia's new hypersonic ballistic missile, dubbed Oreshnik, is impervious to air defences. 'Let them set some target to be hit, let's say in Kyiv,' he said. 'They will concentrate there all their air defences. And we will launch an Oreshnik strike there and see what happens.' Putin's statement was the latest in a series of threats aimed at increasing pressure on the war-torn country, which has faced nearly daily aerial attacks for almost three years.
Meanwhile, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Friday condemned a Russian strike on a Kyiv building hosting multiple diplomatic missions including those of Portugal, Argentina, Albania and Montenegro. 'Another heinous Russian attack against Kyiv,' the European Commission chief posted on X in response. 'Putin's disregard for international law reaches new heights.'
Kyiv said on Friday it had received the bodies of 503 killed Ukrainian service members from Russia, in the latest return of remains that points to the high cost of fighting. The exchange of prisoners and bodies of killed military personnel remains one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv. 'The bodies of 503 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine,' the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement on social media. President Volodymyr Zelensky said this month that 43,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed and 370,000 had been wounded since the Kremlin dispatched its army to Ukraine. The Coordination Headquarters said on Friday that 403 bodies had been returned from the Donetsk region, which has suffered the worst of the fight. — AFP