Russia launched a wave of missile strikes overnight on cities across Ukraine targeting homes, a maternity hospital and a shopping mall.
The mass attack comes as President Vladimir Putin vowed “revenge” after Ukraine struck a key Russian warship in the occupied Crimean port of Feodosia.
Explosions were reported in Kyiv, the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said adding that three people have been trapped under the rubble of a warehouse in the Shevchenkivskyi district.
Other Ukrainian cities including Kharkiv, Lviv and Odesa were also struck, officials said.
“Today, at five o’clock in the morning, the fascists’ followers hit the peaceful city with S-300 missiles.
“Ten explosions rang out in Kharkiv. Specialised services quickly arrived at strike spots,” Kharkiv region police said.
In Dnipro, a maternity hospital was hit while in Odesa terrifying footage shows a high-rise building on fire after being struck by debris from a downed drone.
“As a result of another enemy attack, one of the high-rise buildings was damaged. The fire was promptly extinguished,” mayor Gennady Trukhanov said in a social media post.
Several people have been injured in the attacks while a building of a metro station in Kyiv used as a shelter was damaged.
Twenty-two Russian strikes were recorded in Kharkiv, damaging a hospital, residential buildings and an industrial facility, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
The attacks come after Putin sent ‘death squads’ into occupied Crimea to hunt down anyone working for the Ukranian resistance that helped Kyiv destroy the Russian warship.
Ukraine launched a British Storm Shadow missile strike that sunk the key Russian landing ship Novocherkassk in a major blow for Putin on Boxing Day.
A Ukrainian supersonic Su-24 jet is said to have launched the cruise missile which ripped apart the ship, said to be loaded with Iranian suicide drones.
Ukraine has said its air force destroyed the Novocherkassk landing ship, with President Volodymyr Zelensky joking on social media that the vessel had now joined “the Russian underwater Black Sea fleet”.
