Zelensky says Russia ‘trying to wipe us off face of the earth’ after air strikes on multiple cities

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of trying to wipe his country “off the face of the earth” after multiple cities, including Kyiv, were hit with fresh strikes.

Reporters in Kyiv said a series of blasts in the city’s centre during the morning rush hour appeared to result from missile strikes. Five other cities, most in Ukraine’s west where the conflict has seldom reached, were attacked, according to Ukrainian officials.

“They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth...destroy our people who are sleeping at home in (the city of) Zaporizhzhia. Kill people who go to work in Dnipro and Kyiv,” Mr Zelensky said on the Telegram messaging app.

“The air raid sirens do not subside throughout Ukraine. There are missiles hitting. Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded.”

Volodymyr Zelensky said people had been killed and wounded in the blasts and accused Russia of trying to wipe his country “off the face of the earth.”

Kyiv police say at least five people have been killed and 12 wounded.

The slew of strikes follows a damaging blow to Russia over the weekend, when the Kerch Bridge, a vital supply line to troops fighting in Ukraine’s south, was damaged in a blast. Vladimir Putin called the incident an “act of terrorism” by Ukraine.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba added that the missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday showed president Vladimir Putin “is a terrorist who talks with missiles.”

“Multiple Russian missile strikes across Ukraine. Putin’s only tactic is terror on peaceful Ukrainian cities, but he will not break Ukraine down. This is also his response to all appeasers who want to talk with him about peace: Putin is a terrorist who talks with missiles,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

Missiles tore into Kyiv, the most intense strikes on the capital since Russia abandoned an attempt to captured it in the early weeks of the war. Explosions were also reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in Ukraine’s west, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east. A witness in Russia’s Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border also heard a blast from the border area.

“The capital is under attack from Russian terrorists! The missiles hit objects in the city centre (in the Shevchenkivskyi district) and in the Solomyanskyi district. The air raids sirens are going off, and therefore the threat, continues,” mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on social media.

“The central streets of Kyiv have been blocked by law enforcement officers, rescue services are working.”

He later said important infrastructure had been hit.

The strikes came two days after an explosion damaged the only bridge over the Kerch Strait to the Crimea peninsula, which Mr Putin on Sunday called “an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure”.

“This was devised, carried out and ordered by the Ukrainian special services,” he said in a video on the Kremlin's Telegram channel.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the blast on the bridge but has celebrated it. Senior Russian officials demanded a swift response from the Kremlin ahead of a meeting of Putin's security council on Monday.

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