KYIV: Russian strikes killed eight people across Ukraine a day after Moscow vowed to achieve its war aims ‘no matter the circumstances’, authorities said on Sunday.
Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s capital in the fifth year of its invasion with Ukraine charging that Moscow is deliberately hitting civilian targets asthe countrybracesforanother tough winter.
Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi announced the latest deaths on Sunday, saying Russian strikes hit a children’s centre in the northern city of Sumy, killingthree people including a 16-year-old girl.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said three people were killed in night-time strikes on the southern Zaporizhzhia region and a Russian drone strike had killed one man in Kyiv.
Authorities in the Odesa region said a ‘massive strike’ on the south of the Black Sea region had killed one more person.
Kyiv Mayor VitaliiKlitschko said a woman and two 16-year-olds had also been wounded and hospitalised in the capital.
‘The enemy continues to relentlessly attack the Kyiv region with strike drones,’ the city’s administration said.’Sixteen sites have been damaged, including 12 private houses in Kyiv’s outskirts, as well as a warehouse and production facility, it added. Russian strikes in the Odesa region damaged housing, a shop, a hotel, a medical building and a warehouse storing grain, said regional head Oleg Kiper.
Targeting ‘civilian infrastructure’ ‘This past week, the Russians launched more than 2,200 attack drones against Ukraine, as well as around 1,650 aerial bombs and 38 missiles of various types, a significant number of them bal-listic missiles,’ Zelensky posted on social media.
The strikes had targeted housing ‘and other civilian infrastructure’ in various parts of the country, he added In Moscow, Russia’s defence ministry said it bombed a Kyivstar data centre in Kyiv and another belonging to the Omega Telecom company, claiming that the firms were providing services to the Ukrainian army.
It also released an image of a drone bearing the ironic message ‘Digital Detox’, confirming that the strikes were aimed at disrupting internet access in Ukraine.-AFP