Multiple missile strikes targeted Ukrainian cities all across the country on Monday morning, according to local officials and media, which attributed the attacks to Russia. This comes two days after a bomb damaged the strategic Crimean Bridge – which Moscow called a Ukrainian terrorist attack.
The office of Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, reported they had detected at least 75 missiles and claimed they had intercepted 41.
President Vladimir Zelensky confirmed the attacks throughout the country in a video address, saying numerous parts of Ukraine had come under fire, and claimed that Russia was targeting the energy infrastructure. “They want panic and chaos,” he said.
Local officials in Lviv, Kharkov, and Odessa also reported that their cities came under fire.
In Kiev, damage from the strikes was reported near the headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which is located in the government area of the capital. City officials halted operations of the metro system, and the stations are now being used as shelters for civilians.
READ MORE: Central Kiev hit by missile strikes – officials
The head of Lviv Region, Maksim Kozitsky, reported that elements of the western province’s energy infrastructure came under attack.
Boris Filatov, the mayor of Dnepr, a major city in central Ukraine, confirmed the strikes and said he could only feel “hatred and the wish to fight,” while urging residents to take shelter.
Vitaly Kim, who heads the southern Nikolaev Region which borders Russia’s Kherson Region, reported dozens of projectiles and a number of kamikaze drones coming from Russian troops. He claimed that Moscow was targeting “critical infrastructure” throughout the country.
With similar accounts coming in from many parts of the country, senior Ukrainian officials have expressed determination to fight Russia. “Our courage will never be destroyed by terrorists’ missiles, even when they hit the heart of our capital,” Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov tweeted, also claiming that Russia’s future is that of “a globally despised rogue terrorist state.”
The strikes on Monday were launched two days after Russia’s Crimean Bridge was damaged by a powerful explosion, which Moscow blamed on the Ukrainian special services. Senior Russian officials described the plot – which apparently involved sneaking explosives into a cargo truck and detonating it as it crossed the bridge between Crimea and mainland Russia – as a terrorist attack on critical civilian infrastructure.
Officials in Kiev previously claimed that the bridge was a legitimate military target and have called for its destruction.
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