JAKARTA - Russia fired cruise missiles at cities across Ukraine during peak hours on Monday morning, killing civilians, causing power cuts and heat, in what President Vladimir Putin declared in retaliation for Ukraine's attacks, including on bridges to Crimea.
The missiles hit a busy intersection, parks and tourist sites in the central city of Kyiv with intensity invisible, even as Russian troops sought to seize the capital at the start of the war.
Explosions were also reported to have occurred in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro, and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east.
In a televised address, President Putin said he had ordered a "massive" long-range attack on Ukraine's energy, command and communications targets, using missiles fired from the air, sea and land. That was in response to what he described as terrorist attacks, including Saturday's explosions on the Kerch Strait bridge.
"The Kyiv regime, with its actions, has put itself at the same level as international terrorist organizations. With the most disgusting group. Decreasing such an act without a response is absolutely impossible," President Putin said.
Last Saturday, the Kremlin was humiliated when an explosion damaged the only bridge over the Kerch Strait connecting Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, which Moscow exported in 2014, with Russia.
Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday's rush hour attacks were deliberately carried out to kill people as well as to cripple Ukraine's power grids.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Ministers said 11 main infrastructure targets were hit in eight areas, leaving the country's plots without electricity, water, or heat.
A large crater gaped next to the children's playground in the Kyiv central garden. The remains of the missile that appeared buried, smoked in the mud.
More missile fire hit the capital city again in the morning. Pedestrians flocked to take cover at the entrance of the Metro station and inside the parking garage.
Security camera footage showed bullet fragments and the fire engulfed a glass-story bridge across a forested valley in the city center, one of the most popular tourist sites in Kyiv.
In the middle of the morning, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said Russia had fired 81 cruise missiles, and Ukraine's air defenses had shot down 43 of them. Police said at least five people were killed and 12 injured in Kyiv.
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