Russia is continuing its campaign of precision missile strikes on Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense has indicated.
"Today the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continued to conduct massed strikes using high-precision, long-range air and sea-based weapons at military command and control facilities and the energy system of Ukraine. The goal of the strikes has been reached. All designated targets were hit," MoD spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian media reported that a nationwide air alert had been issued, and that a series of explosions occurred in Kiev, Odessa, Vinnitsa, Rovno, Krivoy Rog, Zhitomir, Khmelnitsky, Nikolayev, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, and Lvov. Explosions were followed by power outages in some areas.
Tuesday's strikes were the second straight day of attacks targeting Ukrainian electricity infrastructure and command and communications systems used by the Ukrainian military. Monday's strikes hit targets across over 1,000 km, destroying or damaging multiple military facilities, and causing widespread power outages. Ukrainian media reported that 11 people were killed and over two dozen others injured, and that as many as 200 missiles were used.
President Putin said that the attacks were a response to Ukrainian attacks targeting Russian territory, including Saturday's attack on the Crimean Bridge, which killed three civilians, the TurkStream gas pipeline, Russian electricity and transport infrastructure, and the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, among others. Putin warned that "if attempts to carry out terror attacks against our territory continue, Russia's responses will be tough and will correspond in scale to the level of threat posed to the Russian Federation."
Ukrainian officials boasted about Kiev's responsibility for the Crimean Bridge attack on social media and to the New York Times. However, a senior Ukrainian official responsible for sabotage operations tricked into speaking to Russian pranksters accidentally revealed that Washington "has the right to veto all of our operations," and that Kiev couldn't "move forward" with an attack on the Crimean Bridge unless US officials approved it.
Until now, Russia has generally avoided targeting critical infrastructure in the course of the special military operation in Ukraine, keeping in line with the goals outlined at its outset, which President Putin characterized as the "de-Nazification" of the government in Kiev, and the "de-militarization" of the nation's armed forces to halt attacks on the Donbass.
The escalation coming in the wake of the Crimean Bridge explosion threatens to intensify the conflict, with Western media reporting that the Zelensky government has reiterated its demands for longer-range missiles to enable it to strike deep into Russian territory.
Moscow has repeatedly warned the United States and its NATO allies against sending advanced weaponry to Ukraine, saying such deliveries threaten to expand the crisis, and that part of these arms - including things like portable anti-aircraft weapons which could shoot down civilian airliners, could end up on the international weapons black market and in the hands of terrorist groups.
The Russian military and militias and officials in the Donbass and other border regions have also indicated that the Ukrainian side uses a major portion of its Western-sourced heavy weaponry to launch indiscriminate attacks against civilians.