Russian missile barrage on Kiev kills one, cuts heating

KIEV

TOPSHOT - This handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Dec. 20, 2024 shows a building damaged as a result of a missile attack in Kiev, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russian missiles targeted the Ukrainian capital Kiev at sunrise on Dec. 20, killing at least one person and cutting heating to hundreds of buildings in cold temperatures.

Moscow said it attacked Ukraine as retaliation for a strike using Western missiles on a chemical plant in Russia earlier in the week.

The strikes came as Russia's invasion nears its three-year mark.

The airforce said it downed all five Iskander missiles Russia launched at the capital, but that debris caused damage in five districts.

The strikes killed at least one person and wounded nine, Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

It also cut heating to 630 residential buildings, as well as a dozen of medical clinics and schools.

Moscow claimed responsibility for the overnight attack on Ukraine, which came a day after Russian leader Vladimir Putin had threatened to strike Kiev.

Putin at a press conference on Dec. 19 suggested a "hi-tech duel" over Kiev to test his claims that Russia's new hypersonic ballistic missile, dubbed Oreshnik, is impervious to air defences.

"Let them set some target to be hit, let's say in Kiev," he said.

"They will concentrate there all their air defences. And we will launch an Oreshnik strike there and see what happens."

Putin's statement was the latest in a series of threats aimed at increasing pressure on the war-torn country, which has faced nearly daily aerial attacks for almost three years.

Russian attacks also killed two people in Ukraine's southern city of Kherson on Dec. 20.