Russia pummels Kyiv with deadly missile strikes after tank pledge

Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed a deadly barrage of missiles and self-exploding drones on Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine on Thursday, as Moscow responded with fury over Western promises to send dozens of battle tanks to Ukraine.

The attacks came a day after Ukraine’s Western allies, led by the US and Germany, agreed to send dozens of advanced battle tanks to help Ukraine push back Moscow’s forces and stop the invasion as it nears the one-year mark.

Air raid alarms had sounded across Ukraine as people headed to work. In Kyiv, crowds took temporary shelter in underground metro stations, where they were pictured huddling on motionless escalators, staring at their phone screens.

The mayor of Kyiv said a 55-year-old man was killed in the capital, the city’s first war-related death of the year, and two others were wounded.

The regional prosecutor’s office in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia province said three people were killed and seven injured in a strike on an energy facility.  

The spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, Oleksandr Khorunzhyi, announced that the attacks claimed the lives of at least 11 people across the country.

The Ukrainian military said it had shot down all 24 drones sent overnight by Russia, including 15 around the capital, and 47 of 55 Russian missiles — some fired from Tu-95 strategic bombers in the Russian Arctic.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said electric substations had been hit as Russia continued to target energy facilities.

The attacks followed Russia’s recent pattern of launching widespread strikes about every two weeks targeting power plants and other critical infrastructure to weaken the Ukrainians’ resolve by leaving millions of people without heat and electricity in the dead of winter.

But this latest barrage came less than 24 hours after Germany said it would supply 14 of its modern Leopard 2 battle tanks and give the green light to other European nations to send up to 88 more.

Meanwhile, President Biden pledged 31 Abrams M1 tanks to Ukrainian forces as they try to break through entrenched Russian lines in the east.

Britain, Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden have sent or announced plans to supply hundreds of tanks and heavy armored vehicles to Ukraine.

“The key now is speed and volumes. Speed in training our forces, speed in supplying tanks to Ukraine. The numbers in tank support,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address Wednesday.

“We have to form such a ‘tank fist,’ such a ‘fist of freedom.’”

Maintaining Kyiv’s drumbeat of requests, Zelensky said he had spoken to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and asked for long-range missiles and aircraft, which he described as a “dream.”

Ukraine’s allies have already provided billions of dollars in military aid, including sophisticated US missile systems that have helped turn the tide of the war.

The US has been reluctant to deploy its difficult-to-maintain M1 Abrams tanks, but ultimately promised 31 to persuade Germany to pledge its more easily operated Leopards.

Germany said its Leopards should be operational in three to four months, and Britain said Thursday it expected the 14 Challenger tanks it is sending to be in Ukraine in two months.

Moscow reacted with fury to the Western tank pledges, decrying the move Wednesday as a “blatant provocation.”

The Kremlin said it saw this development as evidence of the growing “direct involvement” of the US and Europe in the 11-month-old conflict, something Ukraine’s Western allies deny.

With Post wires