Just when the world was left wondering why Russian President Vladimir Putin hadn’t responded to Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory, Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack on Kyiv and other areas on Monday morning.
Explosions sounded around Kyiv around 8 a.m.
It’s been more than 10 days since Ukraine boldly launched an offensive deep into Russian territory.
CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier had previously speculated that Putin had refrained from immediately responding because he wanted to use the Kursk incursion as a way to make Russians feel threatened so that they would support him in the ongoing conflict.
The Monday morning attacks have reportedly caused power outages.
“The desire to destroy our energy will cost the Russians dearly: their infrastructure,” President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, threatened on Telegram, reported the New York Post.
The Washington Post reports on Russia’s fierce new offensive against Kyiv. Here’s the start of the story:
KYIV — Russia launched a major missile attack across Ukraine early Monday morning, hammering locations in the country’s east and west, killing at least three and putting massive strains on Ukraine’s energy grid, officials said.
Ukraine celebrated independence from the Soviet Union on Saturday, and some form of Russian attack around the date had been widely expected, including in warnings from the U.S. Embassy.
The bombardment, which hit at least 15 regions across the country, followed an overnight drone attack against Kyiv and the surrounding region, as well as missiles attacks over the weekend that killed a security adviser working for the Reuters news agency and injured two others in eastern Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram that the attack was “one of the biggest combined strikes,” involving “more than 100 missiles of various types” and “close to 100” self-destructing drones, “targeting critical civilian infrastructure.”
Zelensky repeated calls for Western countries to lift restrictions on using weapons they contribute to Ukraine to strike inside Russia. “There cannot be long-range restrictions in Ukraine, when terrorists do not have such restrictions.”