Air alert as Russia pummels Ukrainian cities with missiles

According to authorities, Russia unleashed a flurry of missile attacks on Friday throughout Ukrainian cities, including the capital, and issued a national air alert.

“We are doing everything to strengthen our air shield. But the world needs to see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror,” Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.

AFP reporters in central Kyiv heard several powerful explosions in the early hours of Friday.

“Explosions in Kyiv. Air defence operating. Stay in shelters,” the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on Telegram.

Later thereafter, Klitschko said that a warehouse was ablaze.

The director of Kyiv’s military administration, Sergiy Popko, said that there was fire in a residential apartment block and that rubble had fallen in two different areas of the city.

The strikes occurred throughout the night, following a significant defeat for the Russian navy when Ukraine attacked a Russian cruiser in the captured Crimean port of Feodosia.

At least five additional Ukrainian cities, including Odesa in the south, Lviv in the west, and Kharkiv in the northeast, were hit by missiles and drones on Friday, according to the mayors and police of those towns.

“Today, at five o’clock in the morning, the fascists’ followers hit the peaceful city with S-300 missiles. Ten explosions rang out in Kharkiv,” Kharkiv region police said.

Kharkiv mayor Igor Terekhov later said there had been three waves of strikes on Friday.

– ‘We must respond’ –

In the southern port of Odesa, a high-rise building caught fire after being struck by debris from a downed drone, the city’s mayor said.

“As a result of another enemy attack, one of the high-rise buildings was damaged. The fire was promptly extinguished,” mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said on social media.

Ukraine’s southern command said 14 attack drones had been destroyed in the south of the country and there were no casualties reported.

The attacks came after Kremlin on Tuesday acknowledged a Ukrainian attack had damaged one of its warships.

Ukraine said its air force destroyed the Novocherkassk landing ship, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joking on social media that the vessel had now joined “the Russian underwater Black Sea fleet”.

The Kremlin said Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin “about the damage to our large landing ship”.

Russia’s defence ministry said that the ship was damaged by guided aerial missiles.

On Thursday, Zelenskyy thanked the United States for releasing the last remaining package of weapons available for Ukraine under existing authorisation, as uncertainty surrounds further aid to his war-torn country.

Zelenskyy had warned that any change in policy from the US — Kyiv’s main backer — could have a strong impact on the course of the war.

“I thank President Joe Biden, Congress, and the American people for the $250 million military aid package announced yesterday,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

“To defend freedom and security not only in Ukraine and Europe but also in the United States, we must continue to respond to ongoing Russian aggression,” he said.