Putin’s revenge: Russia launches its most intense air campaign of the war with missiles raining down on Ukrainian cities including Kiev, days after the humiliating loss of a warship in occupied Crimea

Russia launched its most intense air campaign of the war today, raining down rockets on Ukrainian cities including Kiev.

The overnight attacks came days after Ukraine struck a Russian warship in the occupied Crimean port of Feodosia, in a major setback for the Russian navy.

It is seen as the most intense airstrike of the brutal and bloody war Putin unleashed 22 months ago.

One person was killed and eight were injured in Kharkiv, and seven others were injured in Kiev during Russia’s rocket attacks today, officials said.

A metro station used as a shelter in Ukraine’s capital was damaged, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said on Telegram’s Messenger app.

‘Explosions in Kiev. Air defense active. Stay in shelters,” Klitschko said in a message on Telegram. Klitschko later said that a warehouse was on fire.

Video released on social media appeared to show a massive explosion at a high-rise in the capital.

Sergiy Popko, head of Kiev’s military administration, said debris fell in two parts of the city and there was also a fire in a residential apartment complex.

Twenty-two Russian attacks were recorded in Kharkiv, damaging a hospital, residential buildings and an industrial facility, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in televised comments.

Drones and missiles hit at least five other Ukrainian cities today, including Lviv in the west and Odesa in the south, the city’s mayors and police said.

A high-rise building caught fire in Odesa’s southern port after being hit by debris from a downed drone, the city’s mayor said.

‘As a result of a new enemy attack, one of the high-rise buildings was damaged. The fire was extinguished immediately,” Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said on social media.

Ukraine’s Southern Command said fourteen attack drones were destroyed in the south of the country and no casualties were reported.

The attack and deliberate destruction were seen as revenge for Ukraine’s Storm Shadow Boxing Day missile attack in Crimea on the Novocherkassk large landing ship, which is believed to have killed at least 33 and injured dozens.

Ukraine was simultaneously attacked by Russian Kinzhal, Iskander, S-300, Kh-22 and Kh-32 missiles, with 18 strategic bombers and Iranian-supplied Shahed drones, according to Ukrainian sources.

According to some reports, Kalibr missiles were also used.

“We have never seen so many targets on our monitor at the same time,” Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said.

Andriy Yermak, head of Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, said: “Dead people were killed today by Russian missiles, which were fired at civilian objects and residential buildings.

“The enemy’s attack continues.”

More than a dozen huge explosions were heard in Kiev.

One hit a tall tower, causing a huge explosion.

The Artem aviation production plant – which produces air-to-air guided missiles – appeared to be on fire, with black smoke coming from the factory.

“There is a fire on the territory of warehouses in Podilsk district,” the military administration of the city of Kiev said.

‘According to preliminary information, there are injuries. Information is being clarified.”

Some were buried under the rubble, it was reported.

“Emergency services are on their way to the scene.”

Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said: “There are currently five people injured in the capital.

‘In the Podolsk district, doctors treated two men on the spot.

“One victim was hospitalized in Svyatoshynsky district and two in Shevchenkivskyi.

“The explosion damaged the building of the Lukyanovskaya metro station. The station acts as a shelter.’

‘According to preliminary information, an apartment building in Lviv was hit. There are victims. A fire broke out in one of the city’s lyceums. Probably due to the fall of rocket debris,” the Lviv regional government said.

The Yavoriv military training area near the city was hit, it was reported.

In Dnipro, the Apollo shopping center was hit and fatalities were reported.

Mayor Borys Filatov said: “There are deaths and injuries as a result of the morning attack on Dnipro.”

Video showed a maternity hospital being hit.

In Kharkiv, rRegional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said eight were injured in the area.

‘As a result of the occupiers’ attacks on Kharkov, one person has been killed so far, a man of about 35 years old.

“Eight people were injured, doctors are providing assistance on the spot.”

In Odesa, debris from a kamikaze drone damaged a high-rise building.

“A fire broke out,” said the head of the Odesa regional administration, Oleg Kiper.

Information about the victims is being verified.

In Kharkov, resident Olena Kurylo, who was dubbed the ‘Face of War’ after her bloody image was flashed around the world at the start of the war in February 2022, said today: ‘None of us slept well in Kharkov in December and the region, but this was the worst night with more than 23 rockets and constant air strikes since 3am.

‘My daughter is in a shelter with her boyfriend, they just had time to pick up their cats and run there.

‘I hide in the basement of my house and read messages from friends from all over the country: Lviv, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Odesa…

“None of them slept, again and again they grabbed their children and elderly people and ran away.

‘I have experienced so many emotions in the past two years – from the hope that our [Russian] “Brothers” simply cannot do this to us, to shock and tears, to anger and now to hatred.

‘This cannot continue.

“They can’t just keep killing us in front of the rest of the world, as if this is something they have a right to do.

‘They do not! They have no right!

“Please hear us from beneath the missiles, from beneath their endless death drones, from beneath their shelling.”