Kyiv hit by more than 30 Russian missiles
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Moscow fired more than 30 missiles at Kyiv early on Thursday, after Vladimir Putin vowed retribution for escalating strikes on Russia’s border regions.
Ukraine’s air force said that it shot down 31 Russian missiles fired towards Kyiv, with 17 people wounded by the attacks.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, pointed to the attack as a reason why the West needs to immediately deliver air defence systems.
“Such terror continues every day and night,” Mr Zelensky said in a post on Telegram on Thursday.
“It is possible to put an end to it through global unity... Russian terrorists do not have missiles capable of bypassing Patriot and other leading world systems.
“This protection is required in Ukraine now. From Kyiv to Kharkiv, Sumy to Kherson, and Odesa to the Donetsk region.
“This is entirely possible if our partners demonstrate sufficient political will.”
A vital $60 billion (£47 billion) US military aid package for Ukraine is currently held up in Congress amid domestic political arguments.
Ukraine’s air force said that Russia fired two Iskander ballistic missiles and 29 cruise missiles, launched from strategic bombers.
Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Mr Zelensky’s office, said: “Our defenders worked successfully and shot down all the missiles.”
It was the first attempted missile strike on the Ukrainian capital since early February, said Serhiy Popko the, head of the Kyiv city military administration.
The attack comes after a sharp escalation in Ukrainian strikes on Russian border regions and oil refineries in the past two weeks.
Speaking last week after a wave of Ukrainian drone, rocket and artillery attacks on Russia, the Russian president said: “These strikes by the enemy do not and will not go unpunished.”
On Thursday, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, said that five people were injured in the latest aerial bombardment.
In a post on Telegram, he wrote: “In the city of Belgorod, more than 30 apartments in six residential buildings were damaged as a result of an air attack by the Ukrainian armed forces.”
He published photos showing damaged facades and smashed windows in multistorey apartment blocks.
On Wednesday, he vowed to restore “security” to the border areas and said that Russia had a “plan” to deliver victory against Kyiv.
On Thursday, Russia’s FSB security service said it had arrested a Russian citizen in Belgorod who was preparing “terrorist acts against the Russian military”, Russian state media reported.
It said the person was working with the Russian Volunteer Corps, one of the militia groups that claimed to be behind a string of armed attempted cross-border incursions last week.
