Russia kills 4 in massive Ukraine attack after vowing retaliation
Smoke billows from the site of a Russian strike on a shopping center in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, amid the Russian invasion. EPA-Yonhap
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia pounded Kyiv with a massive missile and drone attack that killed four people, authorities said Sunday, after President Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation for strikes in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.
Multiple rounds of loud explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital throughout the early hours of the morning, AFP journalists reported, in a barrage the air force said involved 600 drones and 90 missiles.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people had been killed in the capital and dozens wounded, while the head of the surrounding Kyiv region said two people had also been killed there.
Air defences intercepted 549 of the drones and 55 missiles, the air force said. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had fired its nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik missile and wounded 69 people in the capital in the barrage.
"Three Russian missiles against a water supply facility, a market burnt down, dozens of residential buildings damaged, several ordinary schools, and he (Putin) launched his 'Oreshnik' against Bila Tserkva (in central Ukraine)," Zelensky said on Telegram.
"They are genuinely deranged."
Russia's army confirmed it had launched the Oreshnik at Ukraine, saying it was "in response to Ukraine's terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure on Russian territory."
The blasts in the capital caused a residential building near the government district to shake, while dozens of people took shelter in an underground metro station in the city centre.
"Russia hit a dead-end on the battlefield, so it terrorises Ukraine with deliberate strikes on city centres," the European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, wrote on X.
"Moscow reportedly using Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles — systems designed to carry nuclear warheads — is a political scare-tactic and reckless nuclear-brinkmanship."
French President Emmanuel Macron joined the criticism, saying the strikes signaled "the dead end of Russia's war of aggression."
Klitschko said damage had been recorded in every district of Kyiv, adding that a strike on a school had sparked a fire and another on a business center led to people being trapped in a shelter.
The building housing the studio of German broadcaster ARD was also damaged, the outlet said in a statement.
Ukrainian authorities said Russian strikes had also wounded 12 people in the Kharkiv region, 11 in the Cherkasy region and seven in the Dnipropetrovsk region.