Russian missiles hit cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday reported waves of Russian airstrikes across the country from east to west, including attacks in Kyiv that hit residential buildings and attacks on power plants elsewhere that shut off power.

The barrage of strikes came as air raid alerts were issued across Ukraine. They followed days of euphoria in Ukraine after one of the biggest military successes of the nearly nine-month Russian invasion – last week’s recapture of the southern city of Kherson.

With battlefield casualties mounting, Russia has increasingly drawn to Ukraine’s power grid in recent months in what appears to be hopes of weaponizing the approaching winter by leaving people in the cold and darkness.

Regions where officials reported strikes included Lviv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne in the west, and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, in the northeast. According to Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul, several rocket attacks also hit Kryvyi Rih, the birthplace of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Residential buildings in the heart of the Ukrainian capital were hit by strikes on Tuesday, authorities said. Further south, officials announced investigations into alleged Russian abuses in the newly captured city kherson, including places of torture and enforced disappearances and detentions.

Video released by a presidential aide showed a five-story apartment building in Kyiv on fire. The city’s mayor said three apartment buildings were hit and air defense units shot down more missiles. Vitali Klitschko added on his social media channel Telegram that paramedics and rescuers are being smuggled to the sites of the attacks.

The strikes followed sirens of air raids in the capital, breaking a period of relative calm since earlier waves of drone and missile attacks a few weeks ago.

The strikes also follow days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by the recapture of Kherson. However, the southern city is without electricity and water, and the head of the UN Human Rights Office’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, lamented an “imminent humanitarian situation” there on Tuesday.

Reports of abuse are also emerging in the newly liberated areas of Kherson after Russian troops left.

Speaking from Kyiv, Bogner said her teams plan to travel to Kherson to try to verify the allegations of nearly 80 cases of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention that have surfaced in the area and “understand if the scale is real.” is greater than what we have already documented.”

The head of Ukraine’s National Police, Igor Klymenko, said authorities should begin investigating reports from Kherson residents that Russian forces have set up at least three suspected torture sites in now-liberated parts of the wider Kherson region and that “our people who may have done so were imprisoned there and tortured.”

“Mine clearance is currently underway. After that, I think investigative measures will start today,” he said on Ukrainian television.

The recapture of Kherson was one of Ukraine’s greatest achievements in recent years 9 month old Russian invasion and dealt another stinging blow to the Kremlin. But large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine remain under Russian control and fighting continues. Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday reported another civilian death from Russian shelling in eastern Ukraine – adding to the invasion’s heavy toll of tens of thousands dead and wounded.

The reports of abuse came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday compared the retaking of the Kherson to the Allied landings in France on D-Day in World War II, saying both were turning points on the road to eventual victory.

Speak via video link to a Group of 20 peaks In Indonesia, Zelenskyy said Kherson’s liberation from eight months of Russian occupation was “reminiscent of many battles in the past that became turning points in the wars.”

“It’s like D-Day, for example – the Allied landings in Normandy. It was not yet the end of the fight against evil, but it already determined the entire further course of events. That’s exactly what we’re feeling now,” he said.

The liberation of Kherson – the only provincial capital that had conquered Moscow – has triggered holidays in Ukraine and enabled family reunification for the first time in months. But as winter approaches, the city’s remaining 80,000 residents are without heat, water or electricity and lack food and medicine.

Still, US President Joe Biden called it a “significant victory” for Ukraine. On the sidelines of the G-20 summit, Biden added: “We will continue to give the Ukrainian people the opportunity to defend themselves.”

In his address to the G-20, Zelenskyy called for the creation of a special tribunal to try Russian military and politicians for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and the creation of an international mechanism to compensate Kiev for war deaths and destruction.

Zelenskyy referred to the G-20 meeting as “the G-19 summit” and maintained Kiev’s line that Russia should be expelled from the grouping.

“Everywhere when we liberate our country we see one thing – Russia leaves behind torture chambers and mass burials. … How many mass graves are there in the area that is still under Russian control?” Zelenskyi asked pointedly.

made Zelenskyy a triumphant surprise visit on Monday to Kherson. He hailed the Russian withdrawal from the southern city as “the beginning of the end of the war,” but also acknowledged the high price Ukrainian soldiers are paying to push back invading Russian forces.

Joanna Kozlowska in London and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this story.