The capital city of Ukraine has been bombed for the first time in months amid the country's invasion by Russia. Multiple explosions rocked Kyiv early on Monday (October 10) following months of relative calm in the city.
Ukrainian emergency services are reporting a number of people were killed and injured in the blasts. Images from the scene show people in the city receiving medical treatment, while a trail of destruction has been left.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, reported explosions in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district - a large area in the centre of the city which includes the historic old town, as well as several government offices. The strikes come a day after Russian president Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of 'terrorism' following the explosion of a bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea.
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The BBC is reporting that the explosions in Kyiv were heard at around 8am local time, with air raid sirens sounding 90 minutes before. Further explosions have since been reported in the capital, while the Ukrainian cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia also reportedly came under attack overnight.
After news of the blasts emerged this morning, Ukraine's defence minister Oleksii Reznikov wrote on Twitter: "Our courage will never be destroyed by terrorist's missiles, even when they hit the heart of our capital. Nor will they shake the determination of our allies.
"The only thing they demolish irreversibly is the future of - a future of a globally despised rogue terrorist state." A video of Putin during a meeting with Alexander Bastrykin, the chairman of Russia's Investigative Committee, captured by Russian media showed the president criticise the attack on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea.
He said: "There’s no doubt it was a terrorist act directed at the destruction of critically important civilian infrastructure." The Kerch Bridge partially collapsed after an explosion in the early hours of Saturday morning, the day after President Putin's 70th birthday.
It had been a key supply route for the Kremlin's war efforts in Southern Ukraine. Russian authorities say a truck bomb caused the blast and claim a man and a woman who were riding in a vehicle across the bridge were killed by the explosion.
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