Russia on Thursday launched a missile attack towards Ukraine during rush hour, resulting in at least one death. The attack occurred the day after Ukraine secured Western assurances for dozens of modern battlefield tanks in an effort to push back against the Russian invasion.
Earlier on January 15, a Russian missile strike killed at least 25 people in Dnipro, Ukraine.
Moscow had voiced its displeasure to the announcements from Germany and the United States. It previously responded to apparent Ukrainian successes with air strikes that left millions without light, heat, or water. The Ukrainian military reported that it had shot down all 24 drones sent by Russia overnight, including 15 around capital Kyiv, with no damage reported.
However, soon after that, air raid alarms were sounded across Ukraine as people were heading to work and senior officials reported that air defences were shooting down incoming missiles.
The Kremlin stated that the promised delivery of Western tanks to Ukraine was seen as "direct involvement" of the United States and Europe in the 11-month-old conflict, which both deny. In the capital city of Kyiv, crowds of people took cover in underground metro stations. The mayor reported that one person was killed and two were wounded when a missile hit non-residential buildings in the south of the city. Kyiv's military administration reported that more than 15 missiles fired at Kyiv had been shot down, but urged people to remain in shelters.
Ukraine's largest private energy producer, DTEK, reported that they were conducting emergency power shutdowns in Kyiv and the surrounding regions of Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk because of the imminent danger. In Odesa, a Black Sea port that was designated as a "World Heritage in Danger" site on Wednesday by the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO, Russian missile strikes damaged energy infrastructure, according to the district military administration. Western analysts believe that the attacks on Ukraine's cities are more of an attempt to break morale than a strategic campaign.
Both Ukraine and Russia are expected to mount new ground offensives in the spring and Ukraine has been seeking hundreds of modern tanks in the hopes of using them to break Russian defensive lines and recapture occupied territory in the south and east. Both sides have so far relied primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tanks.
Reuters quoted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as saying: "The key now is speed and volumes. Speed in training our forces, speed in supplying tanks to Ukraine. The numbers in tank support."
"We have to form such a 'tank fist', such a 'fist of freedom'," he said.
Ukraine's allies have already provided billions of dollars worth of military support, including sophisticated US missile systems that have helped turn the tide of the war in the last six months. The United States has been hesitant to deploy the difficult-to-maintain Abrams tanks but changed course to persuade Germany to send the more easily operated German-built Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.