Russia launches 'massive' missile attack on multiple cities across Ukraine

16 December 2022, 07:55 | Updated: 16 December 2022, 09:01

Russia has launched missile strikes on at least three cities in Ukraine, with energy facilities and infrastructure targeted.

Kyiv has been struck, as has Kryvyi Rih in the south, and Kharkiv in the north east.

Air raid alarms have sounded across the country.

Russia is reported to have fired a barrage of at least 60 missiles at targets across Ukraine.

According to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, Russia hit Kyiv's left bank in multiple locations early today.

The major regional capitals of Kharkiv and Poltava have been left without electricity in the latest mass missile strike.

It is Russia's seventh mass attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, another devastating barrage of strikes that have occurred intermittently since mid-October.

Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the city is without electricity. Regional governor Oleh Syniehubov reported three strikes on the city's critical infrastructure.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in President Volodymyr Zelensky's office, reported a strike on a residential building in Kryvyi Rih, warning on Telegram: "There may be people under the rubble." He said emergency services were on site.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in the north-eastern Desnianskyi and western Holosiivskyi district, urging residents to go to shelters.

"The attack on the capital continues," he wrote on Telegram.

The strikes targeting energy infrastructure have been part of a new Russian strategy to try to freeze Ukrainians into submission after several key battlefield losses by Russian forces in recent months.

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