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Russia has launched a barrage of missile assaults throughout Ukraine concentrating on a number of main cities, together with the capital Kyiv, in one of many largest waves of assaults in weeks.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, stated on Thursday that Moscow’s forces had fired greater than 120 missiles aimed toward destroying key infrastructure and killing civilians “en masse”.
Air raid sirens rang out throughout Ukraine amid the assaults. No deaths have been instantly reported.
Ukraine’s Air Pressure stated the assaults had concerned sea and air-based cruise missiles fired “from totally different instructions” and adopted an in a single day assault by kamikaze drones.
Air defence methods have been activated in Kyiv to fend off the raids, in keeping with native officers.
Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, stated in a Telegram publish that 16 missiles concentrating on the capital had been shot down.
However a minimum of three folks have been wounded and hospitalised, together with a 14-year- outdated woman, after a home and a automotive have been broken by rocket particles, Klitschko stated. Search and rescue operations have been persevering with, he added.
Klitschko additionally warned of widespread energy outages within the capital, saying 40 p.c of its residents have been with out electrical energy following the assaults, and requested folks to stockpile water and cost their digital gadgets.
Ukraine’s international minister Dmytro Kuleba took to Twitter to explain the assaults as “mindless barbarism”.
“These are the one phrases that come to thoughts seeing Russia launch one other missile barrage at peaceable Ukrainian cities forward of New 12 months,” he wrote.
Mindless barbarism. These are the one phrases that come to thoughts seeing Russia launch one other missile barrage at peaceable Ukrainian cities forward of New 12 months. There will be no ‘neutrality’ within the face of such mass struggle crimes. Pretending to be ‘impartial’ equals taking Russia’s aspect.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) December 29, 2022
Lviv, Kharkiv focused
Quite a few explosions additionally befell within the cities of Kharkiv, positioned in japanese Ukraine, and Lviv, close to the border with Poland, in keeping with regional officers.
About 90 p.c of Lviv was with out electrical energy, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi wrote on Telegram. Trams and trolley buses weren’t working, and residents would possibly expertise water interruptions, he stated.
In the meantime, the governor of Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv area, Vitaliy Kim, stated 5 missiles have been shot down over the Black Sea.
Ukrainian navy officers stated two different projectiles have been intercepted over the Sumy area, positioned on the border with Russia within the nation’s northeast.
Elsewhere, air defence models shot down 21 missiles within the Odesa area in southwest Ukraine, its governor stated. The fragments of 1 missile hit a residential constructing, although no casualties have been reported, Maksym Marchenko added.
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv, stated the nationwide raids represented “one in all, if not the most important, barrage of assaults” in current months.
“It is a sign that [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin and Moscow are doing all they’ll to cripple Ukraine’s power infrastructure,” Stratford stated. However, he added, “the air defence methods appear to be working”.
Zelenskky’s peace plan rejected by Moscow
Thursday’s blitz got here after Russia rejected a peace plan put ahead by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy’s 10-point proposal requires Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and withdraw all of its troops from his nation.
However the Kremlin insists that Kyiv should settle for Russia’s annexation of 4 partly occupied Ukrainian areas – Luhansk and Donetsk within the east, and Kherson and Zaporizhia within the south – which Moscow unilaterally claimed as its personal in September.
Russia additionally says Ukraine should settle for the lack of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Russia’s struggle in Ukraine, the most important in Europe since World Conflict II, has killed tens of hundreds of individuals, pushed hundreds of thousands from their properties and decreased huge swaths of the nation to rubble.
Kyiv has pleaded with its Western allies to supply it with further air defences. Ukraine’s foremost backer, america, not too long ago agreed to provide it with the extremely sought-after Patriot missile defence system.
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