Russia has launched waves of missile and drone attacks on several regions of Ukraine, killing at least four people, the Ukrainian military said, a day after carrying out a “massive” attack on Ukraine's power grid.
Two people were killed when a hotel was “razed to the ground” in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, regional authorities said Tuesday. Two other people were killed in drone strikes in the city of Zaporizhia, east of Kryvyi Rih.
Air defense systems in the kyiv region were deployed several times overnight to repel missiles and drones aimed at kyiv, the regional military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian air defenses shot down about 15 drones and several missiles near the Ukrainian capital during Russia's overnight attack, Serhiy Popko, head of kyiv's military administration, said Tuesday morning.
“Everything that flew into the capital of Ukraine was destroyed,” he said on Telegram.
Ukraine shot down five missiles and 60 drones launched by Russia during the overnight attack, the Ukrainian Air Force said Tuesday.
Russia launched a total of 91 projectiles, including 10 missiles and 81 Iranian-designed attack drones, from various regions, it said in a social media post.
On Monday, Russia launched more than 200 missiles and drones, killing at least seven people and damaging energy infrastructure. US President Joe Biden condemned the attack as “outrageous.”
“I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, Russia's continued war against Ukraine and its efforts to plunge the Ukrainian people into darkness,” he said in a statement.
“I want to be clear: Russia will never succeed in Ukraine and the spirit of the Ukrainian people will never be broken.”
kyiv residents rushed to take shelter in metro stations throughout Monday after hearing explosions that sounded like air defences.
“We are always worried. We have been under stress for almost three years,” says Yulia Voloshyna, a 34-year-old lawyer who has taken refuge in the Kiev metro.
“It was very scary, to be honest. You don't know what to expect,” she told AFP news agency.
The scale of Tuesday's strikes and their full effect were not immediately known or confirmed, but Ukraine's air force said it recorded the launch of several groups of drones and the takeoff from Russian airfields of Tu-85 strategic bombers and MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft.
'Act of retaliation'
Several Russian military bloggers, including the pro-war collective Rybar, called the strikes an “act of retaliation” for Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
The Kremlin said on Monday there would be a response to Ukraine's action in Kursk, but three weeks after the incursion, kyiv has claimed further progress. Although Russia says it is still bombing Ukrainian troops there, it has been unable to drive them out.
Al Jazeera’s Alex Gatopoulos reported from kyiv that Monday’s strikes were “the worst airstrike Ukraine has had to endure in months, focused on destroying its electricity and water supply networks. In its third year of war, these long-range Russian attacks show no sign of ending soon.”
The Kremlin denies targeting civilians in the war President Vladimir Putin launched against Russia's smaller neighbor with a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its strikes on Monday hit “all designated targets” in Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure.
Kryvyi Rih, kyiv and central and eastern regions of Ukraine were under air raid alert for most of the night.
Two civilians may still be under the rubble of the hotel in Kryvyi Rih and five were injured in the attack, Serhiy Lisak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located, said on Telegram.
Six shops, four high-rise buildings and eight cars were also damaged there, he added.
In Zaporizhia, two people were killed and four injured overnight, Zaporizhia region governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
“These are the consequences of Shaheds’ night attack in Zaporizhia,” Fedorov said, referring to Iranian-made kamikaze drones that Ukraine says Russia uses in its attacks.
