Missile attacks targeted cities across Ukraine on Tuesday, causing widespread power outages only days after Russia’s humiliating retreat in the country’s south and in the midst of the G20 conference.
The new shelling, which officials said hit residential structures in Kyiv, came during a period of celebration in Ukraine after the recovery of the strategic city of Kherson.
Following claims that air raid sirens were ringing throughout all of Ukraine’s regions, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko declared the attack, claiming that at least half of the city’s citizens were without power.
The missiles were fired by Russian forces, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy director of the president’s office.
He disseminated video of the suspected place of the assaults, which showed a fire in a five-story Soviet-era apartment structure.
“The threat has not passed. Stay in shelters,” he urged in an online message.
The attacks occurred after Russian-appointed authorities in Nova Kakhovka announced their departure from the vital southern city, citing artillery fire from Kyiv forces, who have been regaining swaths of the south following a Russian retreat.
Their statement comes only one day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed “the beginning of the end of the conflict” in the freshly freed regional capital of Kherson.