Russia launched massive missile strikes by ground, air, and sea on cities throughout Ukraine Monday morning in retaliation for Saturday’s bomb attack on the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia with the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is “dealing with “terrorists” who may cause temporary power outages but “there will never be an outage of our confidence—our confidence in victory.”
President Joe Biden condemned the latest attacks which he said served no military purpose and again demonstrated “the utter brutality of Mr. Putin’s illegal war on the Ukrainian people.”
“We will continue to impose costs on Russia for its aggression, hold Putin and Russia accountable for its atrocities and war crimes, and provide the support necessary for Ukrainian forces to defend their country and their freedom,” Biden said in a statement, offering his condolences to the loved ones of those killed, Politico reported.
In a telephone call with Zelenskyy, Biden “pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems,” according to the White House readout of the conversation.
The attacks came as President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Monday. Putin claimed the attack on the Crimean bridge was a “terrorist attack” carried out by Ukraine’s special services.
The official TASS news agency reported Putin told the meeting: "If attempts continue to carry out terror attacks on our territory, Russia’s responses will be tough and by their scope correspond to the level of threats created for the Russian Federation."
Putin is clearly lashing out after being humiliated by the bridge bombing which occurred one day after he celebrated his 70th birthday. Warmongers such as Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov and Wagner mercenary group leader Yegeny Prigozhin have been urging the Russian dictator to take harsher measures to knock out Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, including electricity, water, and power supplies as winter approaches.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense issued a statement that said: “The Russian armed forces inflicted a massive strike with long-range high-precision weapons on the objects of the military control, communications and energy systems of Ukraine. … All assigned targets have been hit.” Russia appeared to be deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, particularly power plants, but there are also civilian casualties.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said as a result of the Russian military strikes, power was disrupted in 15 regions, including Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia. Rolling blackouts were being introduced in Kyiv and several other cities to preserve power supplies.
“As a result of shelling on October 10, critical infrastructure facilities were hit in 12 regions and the city of Kiev, where more than 30 fires broke out, “ the State Emergency Service said. It added that 117 objects were damaged, including 35 residential buildings.
Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Denis Monastyrsky reported late Monday that the missile strikes had killed 14 people and wounded 97 others. He said it marked only the second time since the Feb. 24 invasion that there had been such a large-scale shelling.
The attack could have caused much more damage and casualties. But Ukraine’s Air Force Command, said its forces shot down 43 of the 84 missiles that Russia had fired at Ukrainian targets.
Spokesman Yuri Ignat said:
“The enemy is using high-precision Kh-101, Kh-555 missiles, which are launched from strategic bombers from the Caspian region, as well as Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea, as well as Iskander, S-300 and Tornado missiles.”
He said that the KH-101 missiles can be launched from a distance of 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles).
Ukraine’s Air Force Command said that 13 Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones had also been shot down.
Zelenskyy gave a video address to the people of Ukraine from outside the Presidential Office building in central Kyiv, urging people to remain in shelters throughout the course of the morning, saying:
"The morning is tough. We are dealing with terrorists. Dozens of missiles, Iranian-made Shahed [drones]. They have two targets.
Energy facilities throughout the country. In Kyiv and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts, in Lviv and Dnipro, in Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy Oblast, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr and Kirovohrad Oblasts, the south of the country.
They want [to sow] panic and chaos, they want to destroy our energy system. They are (hopeless).
The second target is people. They have deliberately chosen the time and the targets [of their attacks] to inflict as much damage as possible. But, we are Ukrainians. We help each other. We believe in ourselves. We restore everything [that has been] destroyed.
We might experience temporary power outages, but there will never be an outage of our confidence – our confidence in victory. [...]
And always remember: Ukraine existed before this enemy appeared, and Ukraine will exist after it."
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said at least six people were killed and 50 wounded in the morning missile attack on the capital Kyiv.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion, said more than 70 different objects in the capital were damaged, including residential buildings, critical infrastructure facilities, educational institutions, and hospitals. He gave a complete breakdown on Telegram. A separate list was compiled of cultural sites damaged in the attacks.
Ukrainska Pravda said several rockets were aimed at the center of Kyiv, hitting a children’s playground and damaging the philharmonic hall, the Khanenko Museum, and the Taras Shevchenko Museum.
A Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Biryukov told Ukrainska Pravda that he was on the way to meet an official Latvian delegation in central Kyiv on Monday morning when the missiles struck:
"I saw the ground start to rise and the explosion was happening both behind and in front of me.
At that moment, a backpack with a laptop flew away from me, and I flew into the bushes and fell on my hand. Then I got up, grabbed my backpack, and I remember thinking in my head that there was a lot of valuable information in the laptop, even if everything was fine with it, " he said.
As he fled the scene, he saw another missile hit a business center, causing the glass windows to fly out. He sought shelter with other Kyiv residents in the central train station. He described a scene reminiscent of the early days of the war during the Battle of Kyiv. “People sat and sang, talked among themselves, and read news about what was happening in Kyiv on the surface," he said.
Here is a report from Kyiv on the damage caused by the rocket strike.
In Moscow, the level of threats against Ukraine intensified. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, said that Russia is preparing massive new strikes on Ukrainian cities. "The first episode has been played. There will be others," he said. He added that the goal of any future actions “should be the complete dismantling of the political regime of Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s Security Service put Medvedev on its wanted list Monday for violating Ukraine’s criminal code (encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine, committed by a person who is a representative of power). The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
The missile attacks extended as far west as the city of Lviv, where missile strikes left 90% of the city without electricity, the City Council reported. Trams and trolleybuses were not running, and 80% of the city’s traffic lights were not working. There is no hot water, but cold water is being supplied through backup power supplies. Cellular communications were also disrupted.
In the city of Lviv, more than 90% of the electricity supply had been connected by evening as well as 70% of the water supply, according to the Deputy Head of the Office of the President Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, local authorities said that at least four people were killed and 19 wounded as a result of the Russian missile strikes. Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, said on Telegram that Russian missiles had targeted critical infrastructure facilities, residential neighborhoods and public transport stops. He added that a power outage in the city of Kryvyi Rih, which is Zelenskyy’s birthplace, left 80,000 people without electricity.
The massive attacks on cities come after Russia appointed its head of aerospace forces, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, on Saturday as the overall commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. Surovikin apparently is out to repeat the terrorist tactics he used as commander of Russian forces in Syria from 2017-2020. Russian air attacks leveled opposition-held cities in Syria such as Aleppo.
However, Ukraine has a highly developed air defense system, and is getting more modern anti-missile weapons from Western countries.
Andrei Yusov, a spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, suggested that Surovikin was trying to show Putin “quick results” with a massive strike on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. “This is his style, the style of the new Gauleiter of the occupying army in Ukraine – to throw rockets at infrastructure, in particular civilian infrastructure facilities. He knows that planes fly and you can launch rockets from them to show that Putin's new personnel appointments in Russia have some meaning, to show some quick results."
Oleksiy Danilov, deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, called Monday’s missile attack a sign of Putin’s weakness and reflected an understanding that he will lose the war. Danilov told Ukrainska Pravda:
“Given the fact that Putin cannot win by military means, he resorted to the strategy of destroying our infrastructure, our economy. And this is nothing more than an example of aggressive terrorism on the part of the Russian Federation.
And when they say that Russia is a sponsor of terrorism, I don't agree with that, because Russia is nothing but a terrorist country that uses every opportunity to destroy our country.
I want to note that he did not remove the destruction of our country from the agenda. He emphasizes this publicly. After that, everyone continues to talk to him and keep saying that he should be talked to. As far as I understand, nobody talks to terrorists in the civilized world.
What concerns today's powerful missile attack, which almost the entire country suffered today, precisely on our energy system, is once again a manifestation of weakness, it is a manifestation of the understanding that he will lose. In this way, he wants to sow chaos and panic among us.”
Danilov said that Ukraine needed more air defense systems from its partners. But he offered this reassurance to Ukrainians. Putin “doesn't have much left of all these missiles, and sooner or later they will run out. And we know for sure that there are already much fewer of them than there were before February 24.”
Danilov also responded to reports that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday that he had ordered Belarusian troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine. Lukashenko said Belarus was responding to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its Western backers. Danilov said Ukraine’s border guards and territorial defense forces are ready for any hostile action by Belarus.
”We are aware of what the Belarusians have, we are aware of what the Russians have. I can say: there are almost no real Belarusians willing to fight with us.” [...]
“As for the top political leadership - if Lukashenko decides to participate directly with the military in this war, believe me, it will be the last decision he should make in his life as a person who is not considered the president of the country by most of all civilized countries.”
But the latest Russian terrorist attacks will not undermine the spirit of the Ukrainian people.