Russia pounds Ukrainian cities after Putin vows revenge

Russia pounded Kyiv and Kharkiv with missiles on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said, hours after President Vladimir Putin promised to avenge what Moscow said was a Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Belgorod that killed 24 civilian people.

Russia barraged the Ukrainian capital with waves of missiles during the morning peak-hour, cutting off power in parts of the city and sending debris from downed weapons falling across the area.

“Explosions in the capital,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app, urging people to stay safe.

Ukraine’s air force said earlier on Tuesday it had destroyed all 35 attack drones that Russia launched after midnight targeting several cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv.

The attacks came after Putin said on Monday that Ukraine’s strikes on Belgorod “will not go unpunished.” They kept most of Ukraine under air raid alerts for hours.

Klitschko said that gas pipelines were damaged in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district and electricity was cut off in several buildings of the capital.

The full scale of the Russian missile attack was not immediately clear. The assault follows Russia’s largest air attack on Ukraine on Friday that killed at least 39 people.

The city of Kharkiv was also under a “massive missile attack,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Russia said that Ukraine launched its attack on Belgorod from the Kharkiv region, just across the Russian border.