Russia delivered a massive retaliatory strike on key Ukrainian military sites with precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, in response to Kiev’s terror attacks in the Bryansk Region, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov reported on Thursday.
"In response to the terror attacks carried out by the Kiev regime in the Bryansk Region on March 2, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a massive retaliatory strike. Long-range air-, sea-and ground-based high-precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, hit key Ukrainian military infrastructure sites, enterprises of the military-industrial complex and related energy facilities," the spokesman said.
The goal of the strike was achieved and all the designated targets were struck, the general stressed.
Two civilians were killed and a ten-year-old boy injured last week after a group of saboteurs penetrated the Russian-Ukrainian border in Russia's Bryansk region and opened fire on civilian vehicles and infrastructure. NATO-provided weapons were found at the crime scenes. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incident a "terrorist attack."
Russia carried out massed missile strike on targets inside Ukraine in retaliation to last week's terrorism in Bryansk region, the Russian Ministry of Defense has announced.
All of the designated targets were hit, the officer said, with the strikes said to have destroyed sites hosting Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, knocked out railway infrastructure involved in the transfer of foreign weapons, and disabled facilities involved in the production of ammunition and the repair of military equipment.
Ukraine said it downed nearly half of the missiles launched by Russia over at least 10 regions, with fighting raging in eastern Bakhmut.
The conflict has revived tensions in the neighboring pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova, where Moscow-backed authorities accused Ukraine of plotting a "terror attack."
The Russian barrage on Thursday struck the relatively peaceful Lviv region in Ukraine's west, causing the first civilian deaths there in a long time, and left the country's second city of Kharkiv in the northeast without power, water or heating.
"The enemy fired 81 missiles in an attempt to intimidate Ukrainians again, returning to their miserable tactics," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
'Very scary'
For months Russia has been pummelling key infrastructure facilities in Ukraine with missiles and drones — disrupting water, heating and electricity supplies for millions of people.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people were injured, and 40 percent of the population were without heating following explosions in two areas of the Ukrainian capital.
On Prospekt Peremogy, or Victory Prospect, in the west of Kyiv, three cars parked near a high-rise apartment building were charred and the ground was littered with shattered glass from windows, an AFP reporter saw.
"I'd seen (the missile) flying towards my block of flats and when I got there I saw a big fire. My car was on fire. The flames were powerful and it was pointless to try to save the car," said local resident Igor Yezhov, 60, a car dealer who was walking in a park at the time of the strikes.
Transnistria claims
On the ground, Russia reported gains in the battle for the industrial city of Bakhmut, which has been the focus of months of fierce combat.
Russia's Wagner mercenary group, which has spearheaded the attack on Bakhmut, claimed on Wednesday to have captured the eastern part of the city.
"We cannot rule out that Bakhmut may eventually fall in the coming days," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on the sidelines of an EU defense ministers meeting on Wednesday.
A total of 81 missiles were used in a "massive attack" on Ukrainian infrastructure, including six Kinzhal ballistic missiles that have the ability to elude Kyiv's air defenses, the Ukrainian military said.
"The attack is really large-scale and for the first time using such different types of missiles. We see that this time as many as six Kinzhal were used. This is an attack like I don't remember seeing before," Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of Ukraine, said on Ukrainian television Thursday.
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