On Monday, October 10, explosions reportedly hit several cities across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, confirmed explosions in the Shevchenko district, a sizable area in the city’s centre where the old town and various government buildings are located.
In a Telegram post on Monday, Klitschko said that missiles have hit “critical infrastructure” in Kyiv.
“The capital is under attack from Russian terrorists!” Klitschko added.
According to the French International news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), air raid sirens rang in the Ukrainian capital more than an hour before the explosions, which occurred at about 08:15 local time following months of relative calm in Kyiv.
Speaking about the blasts, Rostyslav Smyrnov, an aide to the Ukrainian interior minister claimed that eight civilians have been killed and 24 wounded as a result of missile strikes on Kyiv this morning.
He added that six cars caught fire after the attack and over 15 vehicles were damaged.
Moreover, 30 emergency service workers and six response units have been attending the scene in Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyy district, said Smyrnov.
Several videos of the reported explosions have emerged on social media.
Twitter user @LogKa11 shared a video of the situation and said, “Over 50+ missile strikes have been reported in Ukrainian cities. Misty cruise missiles such as Kh-101 and Kalibr. Chaos ensues and woman can be heard screaming in the background.”
In another thread of tweets posted the Twitter user claimed that the “thermal power plant has also been hit. This is suspected to be the Trypilska plant in Kiev Oblast.”
In response to the explosions, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that people had been killed and injured in the explosions that shook Ukrainian cities. He further charged that Russia was attempting to “wipe Ukraine off the face of the earth.”
“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.
Blast damages the only link between Russia and Crimea
These explosions have been reported two days after the Kerch bridge connecting Russia and Crimea was destroyed in a bomb blast that struck a fuel train, causing the partial collapse of the sole road link connecting the Russian mainland to the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014. Three people were killed in the blast, Russian authorities said.
The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament blamed Ukraine for the explosion but promised that the bridge will be restored as soon as possible.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday also accused Ukraine of orchestrating the powerful blast that damaged a bridge linking Russia and Crimea, describing the explosion as an “act of terrorism”.
“There is no doubt. This is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure,” Putin said in a video on the Kremlin’s Telegram channel.
“This was devised, carried out and ordered by the Ukrainian special services,” Putin said.