KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's two largest cities were attacked by Russian missiles on Tuesday, killing at least five people and wounding nearly 100, officials said, as the war neared its two-year mark and the Kremlin continued its winter bombing reinforced urban areas.
Four civilians were killed and 92 injured in the capital Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on his Telegram channel when Kinzhal rockets, which can fly at ten times the speed of sound, fired at the city. Another person was killed in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, officials said.
The Ukrainian commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, claimed that air defenses shot down all ten of the approximately 100 hypersonic missiles of various types that were fired.
The barrage extended Russian attacks that began Friday in the largest single attack on Ukraine since the war began. At least 41 civilians have been killed since the weekend.
In a nine-story Kiev apartment building where two people were killed, 48-year-old Inna Luhina was getting ready for work when an explosion shattered her windows and she and other family members, including her 80-year-old mother, were hit by flying debris Glass.
More than 100 survivors gathered at a school that served as an emergency shelter.
Iryna Dzyhil, a 55-year-old resident of the same building, said the explosion knocked her and her husband from their chairs and a subsequent fire trapped them on the top floor until rescue workers rescued them via the roof.
Firefighters extinguish a fire in a destroyed building after a Russian attack in Kiev, Ukraine, on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
“They say they hit military targets, but they hit people and kill our children and our loved ones,” Dzyhil said of the Russians.
Russia fired almost 100 missiles of different types in the attacks, Zelensky said on X, formerly Twitter. He claimed at least 70 had been shot down, almost all of them in the Kiev area, and noted that Western-supplied air defense systems such as Patriots and NASAMS had saved hundreds of lives.
Fire and smoke rise after a Russian attack in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Firefighters extinguish a fire in a destroyed building after a Russian attack in Kiev, Ukraine, on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had launched missile and drone attacks on military industrial facilities in and around Kiev. Depots for missiles and ammunition supplied by the West were also attacked, it said.
“The aim of the strike was achieved, all targets were hit,” it said, without elaborating.
It was not possible to independently verify either side's claims.
Zelensky said Russian forces had fired about 170 Shahed drones and dozens of missiles since Sunday, with most targeting civilian areas.
The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is an air-launched hypersonic ballistic missile. Because of their limited inventory, Russian forces rarely use such expensive missiles against Ukraine.
The attacks left Kiev with a desolate morning scene, with most cafes and restaurants remaining closed. Many people chose to stay indoors or seek refuge in shelters as powerful explosions rocked the city from early morning. Air raid sirens wailed for nearly four hours and the city's subway stations, which serve as shelters, were overcrowded.
After the Air Force warned of incoming missiles, people wearing pajamas under their coats brought sleeping bags, mats and their pets into subway stations as loud explosions echoed from above. At one of the central train stations called Golden Gates, hundreds of people filled the vast underground areas as the trains continued to move.
“Today was perhaps the scariest because there were so many explosions,” said resident Myroslava Shcherba.
On Saturday, more than two dozen people were killed in a shelling of the Russian border town of Belgorod. Russia blamed Ukraine for the attack and has hit back repeatedly since then.
The attack in Belgorod was one of the deadliest on Russian soil since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began more than 22 months ago. Russian officials said the death toll rose to 26, including five children, after a new volley of rockets on Tuesday.
Air defense systems near Belgorod shot down four missiles fired from a Ukrainian “Vilcha” multiple rocket launcher on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Cities in western Russia have been regularly attacked by drones since May, although Ukrainian officials have never acknowledged responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the annexed Crimean peninsula.
“They want to intimidate us and create insecurity in our country. We will intensify the strikes. “Not a single crime against our civilian population will go unpunished,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday, calling the bombing of Belgorod a “terrorist act.”
He accused Western nations of using Ukraine to “put Russia in its place.” While he promised retaliation, he insisted that Moscow would only target military infrastructure in Ukraine, but officials in Kiev report civilian casualties from daily attacks on homes, shopping centers and residential areas.
In other developments, the Russian Defense Ministry said one of its fighter jets accidentally fired ammunition over the southwestern Russian village of Petropavlovka in the Voronezh region on Tuesday, damaging six houses but causing no injuries. It said an investigation would determine the cause of the accident, but it did not say what type of weapon the fighter jet dropped.
In April, ammunition accidentally fired by a Russian warplane caused a massive explosion in Belgorod, damaging several cars and slightly injuring two people.
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