Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities kill at least 19

At least 19 people were killed and 105 others were injured in Russian missile attacks across Ukraine on Monday, according to preliminary data, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service said Tuesday. 

Multiple explosions rocked Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities reported blasts and power outages on Monday following a barrage of Russian strikes.

Critical and civil infrastructure was hit in 12 regions and the capital, where more than 30 fires broke out, the emergency services said, adding the blazes have been put out. 

As of early Tuesday morning, some areas in the regions of Kyiv, Lviv, Sumy, Ternopil, and Khmelnytsky remained without power, the emergency services said.

More than 1,000 people were involved in putting out fires and rescue operations, it added.

Global outrage: International leaders, including US President Joe Biden have condemned the Russian attacks. Biden said the US would provide Kyiv with the support to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems.

Additionally, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said the agency would be conducting a criminal investigation. 

At least one person has died after Russian missiles hit the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia early Tuesday, Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said on Telegram. 

Starukh said 12 S-300 missiles hit public facilities, including a car dealership, a school and a medical dispensary. 

Dozens of people have been killed and wounded in Russian missile attacks on Zaporizhzhia over the past week. 

Some context: The city is Ukrainian-controlled, but lies in a region occupied by Russian forces, not far from the front line and the site of a nuclear power plant that the international community is watching warily. The Zaporizhzhia region is one of four areas of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed measures to annex, in violation of international law. 

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has warned that Moscow could take "countermeasures" against the United States and its European allies due to their "increasing involvement" in the conflict in Ukraine, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. 

"Russia will be forced to take adequate countermeasures, including those of an asymmetric nature," Ryabkov said, according to RIA. "It is obvious that a direct confrontation with the US and NATO is not in Russia's interests. We are issuing a warning and hope that Washington and other Western capitals realize the danger of an out-of-control escalation."

Ukraine support: On Monday, the United States and its European allies roundly condemned Russian airstrikes that hit Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities.  

In a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Joe Biden pledged to continue US security assistance, including advanced air defense systems, according to a White House readout of the call. 

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola told CNN on Monday that the European Union needs to do more to help Ukraine in light of Russia’s escalation by providing more military equipment.

Vladimir Putin’s latest display of brutality and vengeance might be a fit of fury over his signature Crimean bridge being blown up. But his indiscriminate targeting of Ukrainian civilians also raises the prospect of a horrific new turn in a vicious war.

Russian missiles damaged a glass-bottomed footbridge in Kyiv that is a popular tourist site, tore into intersections at rush hour and crashed down near a children’s playground on Monday. Power outages rolled across the country, in places cutting off water supplies and transport, in strikes that recalled the terror inflicted on civilians in the invasion’s early days but that had largely ebbed in recent months.

The attacks snatched away the semblance of normality that city dwellers, who spent months earlier in the war in subways turned into air raid shelters, have managed to restore to their lives and raised fears of new strikes.

The message was obvious for the world to see: Putin does not intend to be humiliated. He will not admit defeat. And he is quite prepared to inflict civilian carnage and indiscriminate terror in response to his string of battlefield reversals.

But the targets on Monday also had little military value and, if anything, served to reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to inflict defeats on Ukraine on the battlefield.

The bombing of power installations, in particular, Monday appeared to be an unsubtle hint of the misery the Russian President could inflict as winter sets in, even as his forces retreat in the face of Ukrainian troops using Western arms.

This possibility that Putin could be heralding a bloody new twist in a war that has gone through multiple strategic phases since the invasion in February was weighing heavy on the minds of political and military leaders in Washington Monday. Their reaction was laced with revulsion that Putin was again unleashing callous warfare against civilians that recalled Europe’s 20th century horrors.

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Russia's Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov on Monday warned Washington and its allies against supplying Ukraine with more weapons, warning it could lead to further escalation of the war. 

"We call on the United States and its allies not to cross the 'red lines' they have approached. Stop pumping the

On Monday, US President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to condemn Russia’s recent missile strikes and pledge continued US security assistance, including advanced air defense systems, according to a White House readout of the call. 

The readout did not provide additional details on what advanced air defense systems were discussed, but the US previously committed to providing Ukraine with National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) that would be capable of engaging Russian cruise missiles.

Antonov said the Biden administration's intention to further support Zelensky "leads to further escalation" and raises the risk of clashes between Russia and NATO.

Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities killed at least 14 people and wounded 97 others on Monday, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service said. 

The strikes also knocked out power in the regions of Kyiv, Lviv, Sumy, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky, the agency said.

According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia launched more than 84 missile and air strikes. Ukraine claimed it intercepted 56 of the missiles and drones.

The military said around 20 Ukrainian settlements were hit.

International response: Global leaders have condemned the Russian attacks and vowed to continue to support Ukraine in its war efforts. Additionally, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said the agency would be conducting a criminal investigation. 

Hours after Russia launched large-scale air strikes in Ukraine, the two nations dueled in the United Nations General Assembly ahead of a likely vote this week on whether to condemn Moscow's move to annex partially-occupied regions in Ukraine.

Late Monday, the audience reaction summed up the initial results: Ukraine's UN Ambassador received applause while Russia's delegate was met with silence. 

Ukraine’s Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya opened his remarks by saying, "My day started almost 14 hours ago because my country was under attack" and described his family sheltering in a building.

“My immediate family was in a residential building under attack, unable to go to a bomb shelter because there was no electricity. Because Russia has already killed some of my family members and we see no end to that cruelty," Kyslytsya said.

A debate of more than 66 speakers is expected to lead to a vote on a resolution strongly condemning Russia’s annexation and declaring the move illegal under international law. 

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said he saw dangerous cynicism in the room with countries ganging up on Moscow, and he scoffed at nations who accused his country of breaching the UN charter by invading Ukraine.

Earlier, the General Assembly soundly defeated a Russian bid to allow the vote on the annexation to be carried out by secret ballot. The vote in favor of a non-secret ballot was 107 nations. Thirteen were opposed. Thirty-nine nations abstained.

The huge explosion on the Crimea bridge shortly before dawn on Saturday severely curtailed road and rail traffic along an important artery — both civilian and military — at a critical moment in Russia’s campaign in Ukraine.

At first sight, it was another embarrassment — even humiliation — for the Russian state, still reeling from battlefield setbacks in Kharkiv, Donetsk and, more recently, in Kherson in the south.

But by Monday the bridge attack had also become the Kremlin’s justification for a sudden blitz of missile attacks across Ukraine. By midday, according to Ukrainian authorities, some 80 missiles and rockets had been fired at infrastructure in a dozen cities — and Russian officials were promising more to come.

In the hours after the bridge explosion, Russian investigators fastened onto one explanation for the blast: It was a terrorist attack using a massive explosive charge hidden in a truck and then detonated as the vehicle crossed the bridge toward Crimea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin picked up the theme on Monday, saying Kyiv had “put itself on a par with the most odious terrorist groups,” which had prompted the subsequent “massive strike with precision-guided weapons on Ukrainian infrastructure — energy infrastructure, military command and communications.”

Putin went on: “In terms of the further act of terrorism on the territory of Russia, the Russian reply will be harsh and will be corresponding to the level of threat to the Russian Federation, have no doubt about it.”

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President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday after a deluge of Russian missiles targeted cities across Ukraine, condemning the strikes and pledging continued US security assistance “including advanced air defense systems.”

During the call, a White House statement said, Biden “expressed his condemnation of Russia’s missile strikes across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, and conveyed his condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured in these senseless attacks. President Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems.”

The White House did not specify which air defense systems Biden discussed with Zelensky, but the United States previously committed to providing Ukraine with National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems. NASAMS would be capable of engaging Russian cruise missiles.

Biden, the statement said, “also underscored his ongoing engagement with allies and partners to continue imposing costs on Russia, holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance.”

Asked whether the attacks of the past 24 hours would change the calculus on what the US would consider offering Ukraine, a senior administration official said they had no announcements to make on that front, but that the US will continue to help provide Ukraine with short- and long-range air defense systems, as it has in the past.

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