Several explosions hit Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv, overnight, a day after Russia’s President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine’s special forces of bombing a bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea on Saturday.
Driving the news
According to Rostislav Smirnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs, the explosion killed eight people and injured 24 others in the blast that hit the central area of the city. Other cities, including Lviv, Dnipro, Odessa, Khmelnytskyi, Mykolaiv, and Zhytomyr, have also reported explosions with civilian casualties.
What they are saying
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the explosions via a Telegram post saying “there were missiles hitting across Ukraine. The president further accused Russian forces of attempting to “wipe us off the face of the Earth,” adding that “Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded.”
China’s Foreign Ministry, according to the ministry’s spokesperson Mao Ning stated in a reaction to the explosions called for de-escalation in Ukraine stating that “we hope the situation will deescalate soon.”
The Big Picture
The blast in Kyiv and other cities is coming off the back of an explosion on Kerch bridge in Russia of which Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for. President Putin labeled the incident “an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure.”
- Many believe the bomb blast might be a retaliation action from Russia.