Russia pounds Ukrainian cities after Putin vows revenge

Pavel Polityuk and Valentyn Ogirenko | January 2, 2024

Russia has pounded Kyiv and Kharkiv with missiles, Ukrainian officials say, hours after President Vladimir Putin promised to avenge an attack on the city of Belgorod that killed 24 civilians.

Russia barraged the Ukrainian capital with waves of missiles during the morning peak hour on Tuesday, cutting off power in parts of the city and sending debris from downed weapons falling across the area.

“Explosions in the capital,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app, saying at least 10 people were wounded.

Ukraine’s air force earlier said it had destroyed all 35 attack drones that Russia launched after midnight targeting several cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv.

The attacks came after Putin said on Monday that Ukraine’s strikes on Belgorod “will not go unpunished”. They kept most of Ukraine under air raid alerts for hours.

Klitschko said gas pipelines were damaged in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district and electricity was cut off in several buildings of the capital.

The full scale of the Russian missile attack was not immediately clear. The assault follows Russia’s largest air attack on Ukraine on Friday which killed at least 39 people.

The city of Kharkiv was also under a “massive missile attack”, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Russia said Ukraine launched its attack on Belgorod from the Kharkiv region, just across the Russian border.