Russian “President” Vladimir Putin promised revenge for Ukraine’s “terrorist” actions over the weekend, including the explosion of the bridge connecting Russia to Crimea.
Putin has no proof Ukraine attacked the bridge, but when has proof ever mattered to him?
Russia pummeled Ukraine with at least 75 missiles on Monday morning, hitting Kyiv and Lviv.
From The Kyiv Post:
The capital Kyiv was pounded by at least six missiles and the urban centers of Dnipro, Zaporizhziia, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnitskyi, Ternopil, Lviv and Zhytomyr also were hit.At least three waves of cruise missiles detonated across the country between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., during morning rush hour. The attacks came two days after a spectacular Ukrainian strike against the logistically-critical Kerch Strait bridge, connecting Russia-occupied Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland.Valery Zaluzhny, commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), in a statement said that Russia fired at least 75 cruise missiles in the morning strikes, of which the AFU units shot down 41. As of 11 a.m., the attacks were continuing, he said.
Putin admitted to bombing Ukraine:
President Putin has said Moscow will respond harshly to the attack on the bridge in Crimea. In televised remarks he said:“A massive strike with long-range high-precision weapons, from air, sea and land against energy infrastructure, communications and military targets was carried out this morning at the suggestion of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff.”“Should the attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory persist, Russia’s response will be tough and its scale will be proportionate to the level of threats posed against Russia.”Putin accused the Ukrainian government of “nuclear terrorism”.He referred to recurrent shelling of the nuclear power station in Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia and said a Russian nuclear power station in the region border Ukraine has also been targeted three times in recent months.“The Kyiv regime has been using terrorist methods for a long time,” he said.
The first wave of missiles hit near Maidan Square, the location of the infamous Euromaidan protest in 2014:
In Kyiv, an initial wave of at least four missiles struck the center of the city. One blew up in the government quarter near Maidan Square, the scene of mass demonstrations in 2014 against a fraudulent election that – temporarily – made a pro-Kremlin candidate Ukraine’s president. Another missile hit the adjacent Pechersk district, blowing out windows of a high-rise office building used by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s staff and other top members of the national government executive branch.One missile hit Kyiv’s upmarket Golden Gate district, next to the National Academy of Sciences building. The strike took place during morning rush hour. Images from the scene showed a burning automobile and a demolished statue of 20th century Ukrainian scientist Myhailo Hrushevsky.Less than a block away from the intersection where one of the missiles launched at Kyiv landed, a Kyiv Post correspondent spoke to a sacristan at St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral, who preferred not to give his name. “The blast wave broke the window above the entry, but as you see, we’ve already cleaned it up and the liturgy is being celebrated.”Most of the buildings around the intersection are part of Taras Shevchenko National University.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY
