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After Ukrainian forces destroyed and damaged portions of the Kerch Bridge, which connects Russia to Crimea by crossing the Kerch Strait, Vladimir Putin apparently ordered strikes on Ukrainian civilian electrical facilities and other infrastructure around the country. Ian Lovett, Isabel Coles and Mauro Orru report for The Wall Street Journal:
Waves of Russian missiles slammed into Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Monday in one of the broadest and most intense barrages of the war, in response to a weekend attack Moscow blamed on Ukraine that seriously damaged a bridge connecting Russia to occupied Crimea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had carried out dozens of strikes using missiles as well as Iranian-made drones to target the country’s electrical grid and other civilian infrastructure. “They want panic and chaos,” he said in a video address filmed near his office. “They want to destroy our energy system.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday said Moscow’s response would be “harsh” if Kyiv were to conduct further “terrorist attacks” on Russian territory.
Russia fired at least 75 missiles at Ukrainian cities, of which 41 were intercepted, according to the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny. Nine drones were also shot down, said Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, calling for more modern weapons systems to protect Ukraine’s skies.
Strikes hit Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Sumy, as well as the western Ukrainian cities of Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv, which had remained relatively insulated from the war raging in the east and south. Power supply was disrupted in some of those cities.
Mr. Shmyhal said 11 key infrastructure facilities in eight separate regions including Kyiv had been damaged, advising residents to be prepared for temporary outages of electricity, water supply and communications.
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