Russia launches missile strikes across Ukraine, hitting mostly civilian targets

KYIV — Ukrainians across the country awoke Monday morning to a barrage of Russian missile and kamikaze drone attacks on civilian infrastructure in cities stretching from Kharkiv in the east to Lviv in the west. Kyiv, for the first time since the Russian invasion began in late February, took the brunt of the assault, with almost all confirmed impact targets being civilian, not military, in nature. According to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Russia launched 75 missiles, 41 of which were shot down by Ukraine’s air defenses.

Ukraine’s National Police said at least five people were killed in Kyiv, with 12 more injured, although the final toll for fatalities and casualties is likely to be much higher. A number of cars in the streets of the capital are now gnarled hunks of burning metal. Passersby, including elderly women, have been shown bleeding from their heads, with Ukrainian first responders tending to their wounds. One young woman was recording a selfie video when a rocket hit perilously close to her, illuminating the wall behind her in a fiery red.

In both Kyiv and Lviv, the explosions shattered months of relative calm far from the frontlines, where Ukrainian forces have been steadily pushing back the Russian advance. The last missile strike that hit the Ukrainian capital was a relatively minor attack in June, and the city had been slowly but unmistakably returning to something resembling normalcy. Shops, bars and restaurants have reopened, and refugees have been returning from western Ukraine and beyond. Lviv, which lost power from Monday’s bombardment, has become a major hub for Western weapons flowing into Ukraine and for housing the internally displaced from other parts of the country. To date, however, not a single Western arms shipment imported overland from the Polish border and through Lviv has been reportedly destroyed by the Russians.

One of the first missiles hit outside the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, by the park named for Ukraine’s national hero, a popular destination for locals with children and dogs. The explosion took out a number of civilian cars at an intersection, killing an unknown number of people. There was charred wreckage and bodies in cars, and glass blown out in buildings hundreds of yards away. Residents were left with the unmistakable feeling that the attack was deliberately timed to hit during rush hour — not least because Kyiv is still under military curfew, leaving the streets entirely empty of civilian traffic between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.

While Yahoo News was at this location, at least two more missile strikes landed about half a mile away, hitting a large civilian building, home to the German Consulate (out of use since the start of the war) and the South Korean electronics giant Samsung. One missile strike landed in front of the building, one landed behind. The structure was severely damaged, and multiple wounded civilians were seen being attended to by Ukrainian EMTs. The tall building’s windows were blown out, floor after floor.

The Russian military did not just use its own domestically sourced arsenal of Kalibr and Iskander missiles, S-300 air defense batteries and Tornado multiple launch rocket systems, but also imported Iranian Shahed suicide drones.

The pedestrian bridge that connects Saint Volodymyr Hill and Khreshchatyi Park, known as the “Klitschko bridge,” after Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, took a direct strike from a Russian missile, although remarkably it seemed relatively undamaged, with only the glass paneling destroyed. Although the “precision” of Russian precision guided munitions is often mocked, the bridge was hit directly, almost certainly a symbolic response to the targeting a few days ago of the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Russia to occupied Crimea. However, Ukraine’s military intelligence service, GUR, claimed Monday that the Kremlin ordered its occupying forces to prepare for “massive missile strikes on civilian infrastructure” on Oct. 2 and 3, well before the bridge bombing. The goal, according to GUR, was to “create panic among Ukrainians and intimidate the European public.” The Telegram channel for Russia’s 45th Special Purpose Regiment boasted Monday that among the “important objects” attacked was the EU Advisory Mission in Kyiv, which is located next to the Klitschko bridge. A photograph seen by Yahoo News shows the mission’s windows shattered by the blast.

Many civilians took shelter in the deep, almost impenetrable, metro stations, which were designed to double as nuclear bunkers when they were constructed during the Cold War. Videos circulating online show crowds of men, women and children gathered underground, stoically singing Ukrainian folk songs and the national anthem, evocatively titled “Ukraine Has Not Perished.” After the strikes ended, many were seen to be leaving the city, hauling suitcases and carrying pets.

President Biden condemned the missile strikes in a statement released Monday, saying the attacks “demonstrate the utter brutality of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s illegal war on the Ukrainian people.”

“These attacks only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” the statement said. “Alongside our allies and partners, 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.”

Putin characterized the nationwide assault on Ukrainian cities as retribution for “terrorist attacks,” presumably a reference to the Kerch Strait Bridge. Theories abound as to how that bridge was blown up. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking anonymously, told the New York Times it was a truck bomb orchestrated by Ukraine’s intelligence service, while other Ukrainian government officials have suggested it was an act of Russian sabotage linked to a power struggle in Moscow over Putin’s flailing war.

Whatever the case, “terrorism” is exactly how Ukrainians are characterizing Russia’s deadliest missile campaign in Kyiv since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “Putin is a terrorist who talks with missiles.”

The attack comes days after the appointment of Gen. Sergey Surovikin as the new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. Known as “General Armageddon,” Surovikin, a former Soviet Spetsnaz (special forces) operator in Afghanistan, took part in the 1991 coup attempt in Moscow, according to Russian independent media outlet Meduza, noting that charges against him were later dropped. Now 55, Surovikin led Russian forces in Syria beginning in 2017 where he coordinated a particularly brutal campaign to retake the rebel-held city of Aleppo on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

Known for his encouragement of targeting civilians in war, Surovikin is said to be close to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch and mercenary financier who Russia analysts say is now jockeying for a more significant role in Russia’s defense sector, along with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Among Prigozhin and Kadyrov’s political targets in Moscow are said to be current Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the general staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov. Kadyrov, who called for Russia’s use of a “low-yield nuclear weapon” in Ukraine following a string of humiliating battlefield losses to defending forces, praised Surovikin’s appointment, writing, “the united group of forces is now in good hands.”