Russia strikes central kyiv with missiles again for the first time since June

While the Ukrainian counteroffensive to recover the occupied territories intensifies, at least four missiles have hit the center of kyiv this morning and have reached the headquarters of the Ministry of Education in the Ukrainian capital, two days after Moscow accused Ukraine of bombing the key bridge linking Crimea with Russia. At the moment the official balance of victims is unknown, but in the images of the attack several scattered corpses already appear. The explosions took place around 08:15 local time (7:15 Spanish peninsular time), after the anti-aircraft sirens sounded.

According to the adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior Anton Gerashchenko, the capital would have been attacked with kamikaze drones. In the south of the country, the Russian Army continues to indiscriminately bombard Zaporizhia, where this morning a new attack has been registered against a civilian building in the center of this city, which has so far left one dead and five injured.

Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko added that a shell landed “right in the center of the city.” “Cars are on fire and the windows of houses have been shattered. There are dead », he tweeted this morning.

The speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, has accused “Russian terrorists” of this “heavy missile attack”. “There are people burned alive in their cars,” accuses the Rada of Ukraine on Telegram.

Columns of black smoke can be seen from various points in the city, according to videos circulating on social networks. A journalist from ‘Afp’ has described the presence of numerous ambulances heading towards the places of the explosions.

Russian response

The mayor of kyiv, Vitali Klichkov, has confirmed the attack in the Shevchenkiv district, in the center of the Ukrainian capital. “The emergency services are on the spot,” he confirms on his Telegram profile. The EU ambassador to Ukraine, Matti Maasikas, has shared on Twitter an image of the appearance of a street in the center of kyiv after the explosions.

After the attack on the Crimean bridge this Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine’s secret services of the “terrorist act”, which caused partial damage to the only infrastructure linking the annexed Ukrainian peninsula with Russia. Likewise, the former Russian leader and current vice president of the Russian Security Council, Dimitri Medvedev, has assured that Moscow will respond to the attack with the destruction of those “terrorists” involved.

In the south of the country, the Russian Army continues to indiscriminately bombard Zaporizhia, where this morning a new attack has been registered against a civilian building in the center of this city, which has so far left one dead and five injured. In addition, the wave of attacks launched by the Russian Army, in response to the attack on the bridge linking Crimea with Russia, has affected Lviv, Zaporizhia and Dnipro, among other locations.