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More than a dozen Ukrainian civilians died Monday after the Russian army fired a deluge of missiles targeting cities across Ukraine, according to a report.
The Russian missiles targeted more than 10 cities, from the Ukrainian region of Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east. The attack led to the death of 14 civilians. At least 97 other people sustained injuries, the Ukrainian State Emergency Services said in a Telegram post.
In addition to the deaths, more than 1,300 settlements also lost power due. In Dnipropetrovsky Oblast, 118 miners were trapped in underground coal mines following the bombings, Denys Monastyrskyi, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, said on the national newscast, as translated by Ukrainska Pravda.
In a televised address, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attacks were in response to the Crimean bridge blast on Saturday, which crippled a key supply route for Moscow. However, Ukrainian intelligence said Russia had been planning the military attack since last week.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the bombing of the bridge which led to the death of three people. Putin, however, still accused the Ukrainian special services of ordering the attack. It was not immediately clear whether the bombing was deliberate, but it took place as Ukraine continues its push toward recapturing occupied territories. The bombing also took place a day after Putin celebrated his 70th birthday.
“It is obvious that the Ukrainian secret services ordered, organized and carried out the terrorist attack aimed at destroying Russia’s critical civilian infrastructure,” Putin said in a brief television appearance, according to a translation by Reuters. “If attempts continue to carry out terrorist acts on our territory, Russia’s responses will be harsh and in their scale will correspond to the level of threats created for the Russian Federation. No one should have any doubt about that.”
The barrage of missile attacks comes as the war between Russia and Ukraine nears its ninth month. Since February, a total of 6,221 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, including 5,825 adults and 396 children, per estimates from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
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