Russia says strike on Ukraine was retaliation for what it called Kyiv attacks

KYIV: Russia said on Tuesday that its large overnight attack on Ukraine was carried out in response to what it described as terrorist acts by Kyiv inside Russian territory, while Ukrainian authorities said the barrage killed at least 11 people and injured more than 100 in Kyiv and other cities.

The Russian Defence Ministry said the assault targeted military-related sites across seven Ukrainian regions, including Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv. According to the ministry, the attack involved high-precision long-range weapons launched from the air, land and sea, as well as hypersonic missiles and drones. It said the strikes hit facilities used by the Ukrainian armed forces, including fuel and transport infrastructure and military airfields.

"Overnight, in response to ​terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime, the armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive strike using high-precision long-range air-, land-, and ​sea-based weapons," the ministry said in a statement.

Ukrainian authorities said Russian missiles and drones struck the capital early on Tuesday and also hit other cities. They said at least 11 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. The attacks came after several days of warnings that Moscow was preparing a major assault.

Retaliation warnings from Moscow

Last week, the Kremlin warned that Russia would begin carrying out systematic strikes on targets in Kyiv in retaliation for what it said was a devastating Ukrainian attack on a student dormitory in Russian-held Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. According to the Kremlin, 21 people were killed in that strike.

Ukraine, however, said it had targeted a drone command centre in the area rather than students. The latest Russian account of Tuesday's attack links it directly to those earlier incidents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday evening that Kyiv had opened a new page in what he called a series of crimes, referring to the dormitory strike and to a later attack on an apartment building in a Russian-held part of Ukraine's Kherson region.

Both Russia and Ukraine have denied deliberately targeting civilians during the war.