Biden condemns Putin’s ‘brutality’ as Russian leader warns of further strikes against Ukraine

‘No one should have any doubts’ about further strikes, says the Russian president

Russia has threatened further “severe” retaliation against Ukraine after Moscow launched a lethal barrage of indiscriminate strikes across the country on Monday, including on the capital Kyiv.

The shelling left at least 11 people dead and hit civilian infrastructure, including a playground.

At least another 60 people were injured as Moscow took revenge for the high-profile attack on the Kerch Bridge which links Russia and Crimea over the weekend.

It launched more than 80 cruise missiles on Ukraine and President Putin warned Russia would again respond “harshly” to any such future attacks by Kyiv.

“Let there be no doubt if attempts at terrorist attacks continue, the response from Russia will be severe,” he said during televised remarks at a meeting of the country’s security council. “No one should have any doubts about this,” he said.

Among the locations struck by Russian missiles as well as the playground, were a public park, bridge, and a German consulate building. Moscow said it had hit all “assigned targets”.

As well as Kyiv, explosions were also reported in the cities of Lviv, Odesa Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Ternopil, Kremenchuk and Dnipro, as well as overnight strikes in Zaporizhzhia.

The attack on Kyiv is thought to have been the largest on the capital since the beginning of the war back in February.

A driver walks near his burned car after a Russian military strike in Kyiv (Reuters)

There was international outrage at the missile strikes.

US president Joe Biden said they demonstrated the “utter brutality of Mr Putin’s illegal war on the Ukrainian people”.

He added that the attacks would only reinforce Washington’s “commitment” to Ukraine.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply shocked”, and the attacks represented an “unacceptable escalation” of the almost eight-month-long war.

French president Emmanuel Macron expressed “extreme concern, as the strikes caused civilian casualties” and renewed his pledge of more military aid for Ukraine.

A rescuer helping an injured woman at the site of shelling in Kyiv (State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

The head of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, called the attacks “horrific and indiscriminate”, while British foreign secretary James Cleverly tweeted that “Russia’s firing of missiles into civilian areas of Ukraine is unacceptable”.

India, which has criticised Putin’s invasion, said it was “deeply concerned” at the escalation of conflict in Ukraine, and willing to support all attempts at de-escalation.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said the attacks showed that Vladimir Putin “is a terrorist who talks with missiles”.

Gruesome images following the strikes showed the body of a man in jeans laying apparently dead in a street at a busy intersection, surrounded by flaming cars in the aftermath of one attack.

A soldier cut through the clothes of a woman who lay in the grass to try to treat her wounds. A huge crater was ripped in the mud next to a playground in a central Kyiv park.

Ukrainians shelter from strikes inside a metro station in Kyiv (EPA)

“They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth ... destroy our people who are sleeping at home in Zaporizhzhia. Kill people who go to work in Dnipro and Kyiv,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on the Telegram messaging app.

“The air-raid sirens do not subside throughout Ukraine. There are missiles hitting. Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded.”

He added that Russian forces launched dozens of missiles and Iranian-built drones against Ukraine.

An injured man receives medical treatment at the scene of Russian shelling in Kyiv (AP)

The targets were civilian areas and energy facilities in 10 cities and were targeted to “inflict the most damage”, said Zelensky.

While air-raid sirens have continued throughout the war, in Kyiv there have been months of calm and many Ukrainians had begun to ignore their warnings and go about their normal business. That all changed on Monday morning.

At one of Kyiv’s busiest road junctions, a massive crater had been blown in the road. Cars were destroyed and buildings damaged. Two cars and a van near the crater were completely wrecked, blacked and pitted from shrapnel.

An injured man speaks on his mobile phone at a site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv (Reuters)

Windows had been blown out of buildings at Kyiv’s main Taras Shevchenko University. National Guard troops in full combat gear and carrying assault rifles were lined up outside an education union building.

“The capital is under attack from Russian terrorists! The missiles hit objects in the city centre (in the Shevchenkivskyi district) and in the Solomyanskyi district. The air-raids sirens are going off, and therefore the threat, continues,” mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on social media.

Local reports said that at least four explosions were heard from the city centre.

In previous months the majority of Russian offensives have concentrated on the besieged country’s northeast, south and frontlines.

Cars burn after Russian military strikes in central Kyiv (Reuters)

The last reported attack on Kyiv was recorded in June. Further air-raid sirens sounded across the capital in the afternoon.

Monday’s strikes followed the explosion which damaged the only bridge over the Kerch Strait to the Crimea peninsula, which Mr Putin on Sunday called “an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure”.

“This was devised, carried out and ordered by the Ukrainian special services,” he said in a video on the Kremlin’s Telegram channel.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the blast on the bridge but has celebrated it. Senior Russian officials demanded a swift response from the Kremlin ahead of a meeting of Putin’s security council on Monday.

The bridge is a major supply route for Russian forces in southern Ukraine and a symbol of Russia’s control of Crimea, the peninsula it proclaimed annexed after its troops seized it in 2014.

Russian security council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev said ahead of the meeting that Russia should kill the “terrorists” responsible for the attack.

The injured receive medical treatment after Russian shelling in Kyiv (AP)

“Russia can only respond to this crime by directly killing terrorists, as is the custom elsewhere in the world. This is what Russian citizens expect,” he was quoted as saying by state news agency Tass.

He also advocated regime change in Ukraine, saying that Moscow should “aim for the complete dismantling of Ukraine’s political regime” and that “the Ukrainian state in its current configuration with the Nazi political regime will continue to pose a permanent, direct and clear threat to Russia”.

In an ominous move, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said that he and Putin have agreed to deploy a joint “regional grouping of troops” amid the escalation of fighting in Ukraine.

Lukashenko repeated his claims that Ukraine is plotting an attack on Belarus, sparking fears the stage is being set for preemptive action by Minsk.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit, said the Group of Seven industrial powers will hold a video conference on Tuesday, which Zelensky will address.