Moscow, Oct 10.- In response to Kiev conducting a series of terrorist attacks on Russian targets, being the Crimean Bridge the last, President Vladimir Putin ordered missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday.
“Today, the Russian armed forces inflicted a massive strike with long-range precision weapons on the objects of the military command and control systems, communications and energy of Ukraine. The purpose of the strike was achieved. All designated objects were hit, goal achieved”, the Russian Ministry of Defense stressed in a statement.
The decision to attack came after investigators concluded that Ukrainian security services were responsible for Saturday morning’s attack on the Crimean Bridge. Officials in Kiev previously claimed that the bridge was a legitimate military target and have called for its destruction.
Speaking today at a meeting of the Russian Security Council, Putin said it was “obvious that Ukraine’s special services were the masterminds, organizers and perpetrators of the terror attack [on the bridge]. The Kiev regime has been using terrorist methods for a long time.”
“A number of terrorist attacks and attempts at similar crimes have been committed against the electrical power facilities and gas transportation infrastructure of our country, including attempts to detonate a section of the TurkStream gas transmission system,” the President further said.
He also recalled attempts by Ukraine’s security services to target Russia’s Kursk Nuclear Power Plant on three separate occasions, with the third attack damaging three high-voltage power lines going to the plant.
Kiev’s “terrorist methods” have also included the murders of public figures, journalists, and scientists, both in Russia and in Ukraine, plus the “terrorist attacks against the cities of the Donbass” over the past eight years, plus “acts of atomic terrorism” – in the form of artillery strikes against the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, Putin added.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky confirmed the attacks throughout the country in a video address, saying numerous parts of the country had come under fire, and claimed that Russia was targeting the energy infrastructure.
Local officials in Lviv, Kharkov, and Odessa also reported that their cities came under fire.
In Kiev, damage from the strikes was reported near the headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which is located in the government area of the capital, Russian Today reported.
Observers are saying this is likely the beginning of a mounting campaign against what Moscow calls the Zelensky fascist regime. (PL)