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Empire strikes back: Russia launches massive missile attack on Ukrainian cities after bridge bombing [1]
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Date: 2022-10-10
Firefighters douse flames after a missile strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia on Oct. 6
Russia launched a massive missile attack on cities throughout Ukraine Monday morning in apparent retaliation for Saturday’s bomb attack on the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia with the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
The attacks came as President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Monday. Putin claimed the attack on the Crimean bridge was a “terrorist attack” carried out by Ukrainians special services. He vowed that there will be a “tough” response if Ukraine continues what he said were “terrorist attacks” on Russian territory.
Putin is clearly lashing out after being humiliated by the bridge bombint which occurred one day after he celebrated his 70th birthday.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense issued a statement that said: “The Russian armed forces inflicted a massive strike with long-range high-precision weapons on the objects of the military control, communications and energy systems of Ukraine.. … All assigned targets have been hit.”
Russia appeared to be deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, particularly power plants. But civilian casualties are also being reported.
Ukraine’s Air Force Command, said that as of midday Monday, Russia had fired 83 missiles at Ukrainian targets, and that at least 43 missiles have been shot down by Ukraine’s air defense.
The spokesman Yuri Ignat said:
“The enemy is using high-precision Kh-101, Kh-555 missiles, which are launched from strategic bombers from the Caspian region, as well as Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea, as well as Iskander, S-300 and Tornado missiles.”
He said that the KH-101 missiles can be launched from a distance of 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles).
Ukraine’s Air Force Command said that 13 Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones had been shot down.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a video address to the people of Ukraine from outside the Presidential Office building in central Kyiv, urging people to remain in shelters throughout the course of the morning.
Zelenskyy said:
"The morning is tough. We are dealing with terrorists. Dozens of missiles, Iraninan-made Shahed [drones]. They have two targets. Energy facilities throughout the country. In Kyiv and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts, in Lviv and Dnipro, in Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy Oblast, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr and Kirovohrad Oblasts, the south of the country. They want [to sow] panic and chaos, they want to destroy our energy system. They are (hopeless. The second target is people. They have deliberately chosen the time and the targets [of their attacks] to inflict as much damage as possible. But, we are Ukrainians. We help each other. We believe in ourselves. We restore everything [that has been] destroyed. We might experience temporary power soutages, but there will never be an outage of our confidence – our confidence in victory. Why these attacks in particular? The enemy wants us to be afraid, wants to make people run. But we can only run forward, and we are demonstrating this on the battlefield. It will continue to be so. And always remember: Ukraine existed before this enemy appeared, and Ukraine will exist after it."
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said at least six people were killed and 50 injured in the morning missile attack on the capital Kyiv. Rescuers were working in at least six places in the capital.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion, said Russia had attacked critical infrastructure in Kyiv and urged resident to heed air raid signals and head for shelters.
Rescuers worked in six places in the capital, both on the right and on the left banks.
Ukrainska Pravda said several rockets were aimed at the center of Kyiv, hitting a children’s playground and damaging the philharmonic hall, the Khanenko Museum and the Taras Shevchenko Museum.
A Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Biryukov told Ukrainska Pravda that he was on the way to meet an official Latvian delegation in central Kyiv on Monday morning when the missiles struck.
"I saw the ground start to rise and the explosion was happening both behind and in front of me. At that moment, a backpack with a laptop flew away from me, and I flew into the bushes and fell on my hand. Then I got up, grabbed my backpack, and I remember thinking in my head that there was a lot of valuable information in the laptop, even if everything was fine with it, " he said.
As he fled the scene, he saw another missile hit a business center, causing the glass windows with glass windows to fly out. He sought shelter with other Kyiv residents in the central train station. He described a scene reminiscent of the early days of the war during the Battle of Kyiv.
People sat and sang , talked among themselves and read news about what was happening in Kyiv on the surface," he said.
Here is a report from Kyiv on the damage caused by the rocket strike.
In Moscow, the level of threats against Ukraine intensified. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, said that Russia is preparing massive new strikes on Ukrainian cities.
"The first episode has been played. There will be others," he said. He added that the goal of any future actions “should be the complete dismantling of the political regime of Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s Security Service put Medvedev on its wanted list Monday for violating Ukraine’s criminal code (encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine, committed by a person who is a representative of power.) The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
The missile attacks extended as far west as the city of Lviv, where missile strikes left 90% of the city without electricity, the City Council reported. Trams and trolleybuses were not running, and 80% of the city’s traffic lights were not working. There is no hot water, but cold water is being supplied through backup power supplies. Cellular communications were also disrupted.
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