Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities came under sustained missile and rocket attacks on Monday, a day after President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of terrorism over an attack on a bridge linking the occupied Crimean Peninsula with Russia’s Taman region.
Several missiles hit downtown Kyiv as loud explosions were heard in the first attack on Ukraine’s capital since late June. Residents fled to bomb shelters as smoke rose over the city.
Missiles also struck Lviv, in western Ukraine; Dnipro, in the centre of the country; and several other cities, including Zaporizhzhia and Mykolayiv in the south, which are close to the frontline.
There were reports of explosions in the Black Sea port of Odesa, and air raid alerts went off in every part of Ukraine, other than occupied Crimea.
Moldova’s foreign minister Nicu Popescu said three cruise missiles launched from Russian ships in the Black Sea had crossed Moldova’s airspace on Monday. He said he had summoned Russia’s ambassador to Chișinău in response.
At least five people were killed in Kyiv, an adviser to the interior minister said on Telegram. Casualties are expected to rise, first responders warned, including at a major road junction near a university and residences of western ambassadors.
Missiles or rockets struck the central intersection of Volodymyrska Street and Shevchenko Boulevard, at the north-west entrance of Shevchenko park, one of the busiest junctions in Kyiv during morning rush hour.
Images from Kyiv showed damage to a children’s playground in Shevchenko park and to a pedestrian bridge nicknamed the “Klitschko” bridge after the city’s mayor.
Photos and videos sent to the Financial Times by government officials showed first responders and ambulances at the scene.
Images on Telegram showed damage to a skyscraper near the main train station in Kyiv, housing the offices of DTEK, a large electricity producer owned by Rinat Akhmetov, one of Ukraine’s richest men.
It was not clear if anti-missile defences in Kyiv were activated. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, wrote on Telegram that 75 Russian missiles had been fired on Monday morning, 41 of which Ukrainian air defences managed to shoot down.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy released a short video saying Russia had used missiles and suicide drones to target “critical infrastructure” and ordinary citizens. “They want panic and chaos, they want to destroy our energy system. They are hopeless,” Zelenskyy said, as he stood outside his office in downtown Kyiv.
The blasts came a day after Putin accused Ukraine of terrorism after the attack on the Kerch bridge, a key military supply route for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and a symbol of Russian prestige.
In a video released by the Kremlin on Sunday, Putin accused “Ukrainian secret services” of carrying out the assault on the bridge, which he described as a “terrorist attack aimed at destroying critical Russian civilian infrastructure”.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former stand-in president for Putin and deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said on Monday that Russia needed to react to the Crimean bridge attack by “directly destroying the terrorists”.
In an interview on Komsomolskaya Pravda radio, Medvedev said the “failed Ukrainian state” was behind the attack. “This is a terrorist attack and sabotage committed by the criminal Kyiv regime,” he added. “Russia’s response to this crime must be directly destroying the terrorists. As is done in the world. That’s what Russian citizens are waiting for.”
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the bridge attack, although officials posted several comments mocking Russia on social media and the Ukrainian post office has issued a commemorative stamp.
Additional reporting by Henry Foy in Brussels