Evgeniy Maloletka Associated Press In kyiv, a building in the Solomianskii district, near the center, was hit and many windows were destroyed. On site in the morning, firefighters and rescuers were busy, smoke escaping from several apartments.
Russia carried out new “massive” strikes against Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least five civilians and injuring 130 people mainly in Kiev and Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian authorities, who are calling on their Western allies increased military aid.
As usual, the Russian army assured that it had only targeted military installations which were all “destroyed” using long-range missiles and explosive drones.
“The trajectories were specially calculated by the enemy to cause as much damage as possible. This is completely conscious terror,” denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his daily address.
According to him, Russia has fired nearly 300 missiles and more than 200 Shahed explosive drones against Ukraine since December 29.
Russia is “deliberately targeting critical infrastructure and residential areas,” denounced Ukrainian Defense Minister Roustem Umerov.
The Ukrainian military said Russia fired 99 missiles early Tuesday. Of these, 72 were shot down, including 10 hypersonic Kinjals by Patriot air defense systems, “a record”.
The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, assured after these strikes that the United Kingdom would “continue to strongly support Ukraine” in 2024, in particular through “further deliveries” of weapons.
The head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, estimated that “with every missile, Putin shows that he wants to destroy Ukraine.” “We are with the Ukrainian people as long as they need us,” she assured.
“Heap of Ruins”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called on Tuesday on X “for immediate measures of de-escalation, protection of civilians and respect for international law”.
In kyiv, a building in the Solomianskiï district, near the center, was partly destroyed. Two people died and 49 others were injured, announced its mayor, Vitali Klitschko.
” It is the horror ! » proclaims Galina Soloviova, a 79-year-old woman, on the spot.
“There is nothing left in the apartment: no more water, no more electricity, no more gas. Everything was blown away,” said his daughter, Violetta, 56. “It’s just a pile of ruins…”
Another resident of the building, Valentina Guerda, 53, points the finger at the Russians: “We were brothers, but we became enemies,” she told Agence France -Press. “So I hope the same thing happens to them as it did to us! »
Briefly cut off in the morning for several tens of thousands of Ukrainians, electricity was “completely” restored in Kiev in the afternoon, the municipal administration said on Telegram.
Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, located in the northeast, not far from the Russian border, was the target of “at least four strikes”, according to Governor Oleg Synegoubov.
A total of 5 people were killed and 130 injured in bombings in Ukraine on Tuesday, emergency services said.
After the morning Russian attacks, the Ukrainian army, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, fired several salvos of missiles at the Russian border region of Belgorod at midday.
This Ukrainian bombing left one dead and eleven injured and damaged buildings and residential houses, according to regional governor Viatcheslav Gladkov.
kyiv asks for “more” weapons
The new series of Russian strikes comes a day after Vladimir Putin threatened to “intensify” his bombings, in retaliation for an attack on Belgorod on Saturday, which itself followed a series of strikes on Ukraine one day earlier.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, urgently called for the acceleration of Western deliveries of “additional air defense systems, combat drones” and “missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers.”
In the United States, the main supporter of Ukraine, negotiations have been slipping for weeks between Republicans and Democrats on the validation of the envelope of 61 billion US dollars insistently demanded by American presidents and Ukrainian, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We need more [air defense] systems and ammunition,” Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny emphasized.
“It is urgent and crucial to support Ukraine now, to stop Putin,” US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink told X.
In a press release, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, considered the Russian strikes “alarming” which left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians “without electricity [and ] without water”, at a time when temperatures are negative in Ukraine.