Russia pounds Ukraine with missiles and drones, five dead

Russia fired scores of missiles and drones at the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the northeastern city of Kharkiv on Tuesday, killing at least five civilians, wounding dozens and causing widespread damage, officials said.

The third successive day of air strikes on Ukraine followed a warning by President Vladimir Putin on Monday that a Ukrainian air attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, which Moscow said killed 25 civilians, would “not go unpunished”.

Smoke belched out of the charred side of a high-rise residential building where Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said missile debris had come crashing down metres away, leaving a crater.

He said an elderly woman had died in an ambulance after being wounded at the site and that 43 other people were hurt. Emergency services said a body had also been recovered on the eighth floor of the damaged building.

“Russia will answer for every life (that it has) taken away,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messenger.

Russia stepped up its missile and drone strikes on Ukraine on Dec. 29 when it launched its largest air attack of the war, killing at least 39 people.

via Reuters