Ukraine top 10 developments: At least 10 killed in Kyiv in Russia’s ‘harsh response’ to Crimea bridge attack

Russia unleashed a series of strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities on Monday, smashing civilian targets including Kyiv where at least 10 people were killed. The strikes come after Russian President Vladimir Putin later termed the attack on a bridge in the Crimean Peninsula as “terrorist action”.

Here are the top 10 developments from Ukraine:

• • At least 10 people were killed and 24 were injured in just one of the Kyiv strikes, according to preliminary information, said Rostyslav Smirnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs. The intense, hours-long attack marked a sudden military escalation by Moscow. The sustained barrage on major cities hit residential areas and critical infrastructure facilities alike.

• • Blasts struck in the capital’s Shevchenko district, a large area in the center of Kyiv that includes the historic old town as well as several government offices, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Some of the strikes hit near the government quarter in the symbolic heart of the capital, where Parliament and other major landmarks are located. Residents were seen on the streets with blood on their clothes and hands.

• • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces launched dozens of missiles and Iranian-built drones against Ukraine. The General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said 75 missiles were fired against Ukrainian targets, with 41 of them neutralised by air defences. The targets were civilian areas and energy facilities in 10 cities, Zelenskyy said in a video address. “They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth…destroy our people who are sleeping at home in (the city of) Zaporizhzhia. Kill people who go to work in Dnipro and Kyiv,” Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.

• • Ukrainian media also reported explosions in a number of other locations, including the western city of Lviv that has been a refuge for many people fleeing the fighting in the east, as well as in Kharkiv, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr and Kropyvnytskyi. Kharkiv was hit three times, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. The strikes knocked out the electricity and water supply. Energy infrastructure was also hit in Lviv, Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said.

• • German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, said the Group of Seven industrial powers will hold a videoconference Tuesday on the situation which Zelenskyy will address. Germany currently chairs the G-7.

• • Britain’s foreign minister James Cleverly called Russia’s firing of missiles into civilian areas of Ukraine “unacceptable”. “This is a demonstration of weakness by Putin, not strength,” he said. Meanwhile, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said the attacks were “a reprehensible act by Russia”. Italy reiterated its “unwavering and steadfast support” for Ukraine, while the European Commission condemned the “heinous attacks”. Peter Stano, a spokesperson for the European Union’s executive arm, described the strikes as a contravention of international humanitarian law and said it amounted a “further escalation” of the war in Ukraine that was totally unacceptable.

• • A loud explosion was heard in Russia’s Belgorod region, close to the border with Ukraine, two witnesses told Reuters. The witnesses reported a loud bang and windows shaking. Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency cited local officials as saying the blast was caused by explosions of ammunition at a landfill site. Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that in a separate incident, Ukrainian forces fired on border villages on Monday.

• • External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Russia’s war on Ukraine “does not serve the interests of anybody,” but declined to say whether the Indian government would support a United Nations General Assembly motion condemning Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territories. “As a country of the Global South, we have been seeing firsthand how much it has impacted low-income countries, the challenges that they are facing in terms of fuel and food and fertilizers,” he added.

• • Russian troops are coming closer to the strategically important eastern town of Bakhmut, having advanced up to 2 km (1.24 miles) towards the town over the last week, a British intelligence update said. Bakhmut sits on a main road leading to the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, both situated in the industrial Donbas region, which Moscow has yet to fully capture.

• A senior aide to the Ukrainian president said Russian rocket strikes on cities across Ukraine were a signal to the civilised world that “the Russia question” must be solved with force. “Cowards fighting playgrounds, children and people,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office, wrote. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Putin “is a terrorist who talks with missiles.”