Four killed in combined Russian air strike on Ukraine

[January 08, 2024]  By Dan Peleschuk and Pavel Polityuk
 
KYIV (Reuters) - Russia sent dozens of missiles across Ukraine early on Monday, killing at least four civilians and hitting residential areas and commercial sites in its latest combined air attack, Ukrainian authorities said.    

People take shelter inside a metro station during an air raid alert, amid Russia's missile attacks on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Alina Smutko

Two people were killed in the western Khmelnytskyi region, local officials reported, where critical infrastructure had also been struck.

In Kryvyi Rih, a 62-year-old was killed and a shopping centre and scores of private homes and apartment buildings damaged after nine Russian missiles hit the south central city, said Oleksandr Vilkul, the mayor.

"The mad enemy once again struck civilians," regional governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "Directed missiles at people."

Russia said it hit military-industrial targets in Ukraine from sea and air on Monday.

"This morning, a multiple attack was carried out with high-precision, long-range, sea and air-based weapons, including the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system, on facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine," the defense ministry said in a daily dispatch.

Ukraine said its air defences had destroyed 18 out of 51 missiles, a much lower shoot-down rate than normal which Kyiv attributed to the large number of ballistic missiles fired by Russia.

They are more difficult to intercept, air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said on Ukrainian television.

All eight drones launched by Russia were also shot down.

The strikes came amid a cold snap sweeping Ukraine, with Vilkul also reporting that 15,000 residents were without power and that local trams and trolleybuses were not running.

In the eastern city of Kharkiv, an industrial site and educational facility were damaged after at least four missile strikes, Governor Oleh Synehubov said.

A 63-year-old woman was killed in a strike on a town south of Kharkiv, he added.

Five people were also wounded in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, where governor Yuriy Malashko said residential areas had been struck.

"Not a single military target," he wrote on Telegram.

Russia in recent weeks has resumed a campaign of regular air strikes on Ukrainian population centers far behind the lines of its nearly two-year-old full-scale invasion.

(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Ed Osmond)

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