Russia launches ‘one of the most massive’ missile attacks on Ukraine

Russia launched a large round of missile attacks across Ukraine on Thursday morning, as Moscow rejected a Ukrainian peace plan and kept up its attacks on the country's infrastructure.

Targets from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east came under fire on Thursday morning. The Ukrainian army command said Russia launched 69 missiles from land, sea and air, 54 of which it said were shot down by Ukrainian air defences.

The Ukrainian defence ministry wrote on Twitter that the strikes constituted "one of the most massive missile attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion".

Ukrainians rushed to bomb shelters as air raid sirens sounded across the country, during the attacks that left many areas without electricity.

Kyiv's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said at least three people in the capital were hospitalised with injuries, including a 14-year-old girl. He said 40% of the city's residents were without electricity as a result of the attacks, but hot water and heating capacity was not affected.

Klitschko asked people in Kyiv to ensure they had adequate supplies of water and that their electronic devices were charged.

The chief of Kyiv regional police said on Telegram that Russian attacks had damaged 21 houses, a hospital and two cars. In Kharkiv, authorities said one man had been killed and two injured in a series of attacks on critical infrastructure.

Authorities in Dnipro, Odesa and Kryvyi Rih regions said they had taken the decision to switch off electricity to minimise damage to critical infrastructure facilities if they were hit. The mayor of Lviv said 90% of the city was without electricity and trams were not running.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Volodymyr Zelenskiy's administration, wrote on Telegram that in the recently liberated city of Kherson, a Russian strike hit the cardiology unit of a hospital, damaging the building and injuring a security guard and a maintenance employee. Earlier this week, there was a Russian strike on a maternity ward in Kherson, with no casualties.

Also on Thursday morning, Belarusian authorities said they had shot down a Ukrainian S-300 missile nine miles inside Belarusian territory, reminiscent of an incident last month when a Ukrainian air defence missile landed in Poland, killing two people. Thursday's incident did not cause any casualties, and fears it could be used as a pretext for longstanding Russian ally Belarus to up its involvement in the Kremlin's war were calmed by official statements.

"Unfortunately, these things happen," said Oleg Konovalov, military commissar of the Brest region.

Late on Thursday morning, the all-clear sounded in Kyiv, and authorities there and in Lviv said they hoped to restore electricity supply quickly. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine's president, said Russia was aiming to "destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en masse".

Since the Kremlin's advance in eastern Ukraine ground to a halt over the summer and the Russian army was forced to retreat from Kherson after a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, Moscow's strategy has pivoted towards targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, to inflict maximum pain on the population over the cold winter.

"Russia does not want peace with Ukraine. Russia wants the subjugation of Ukraine," Melinda Simmons, Britain's ambassador to Ukraine, wrote on Twitter in response to the latest attacks.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has claimed Moscow is ready for peace talks, but his officials have said any talks must recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea and four other Ukrainian regions it claimed to have annexed in September, even though Russian troops do not fully control any of the four areas.

Zelenskiy has mooted a 10-point peace plan that involves Russia fully withdrawing from Ukrainian territory, which has been rejected by Russia. The Ukrainians have also suggested a peace summit be held at the United Nations in February.

Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed the summit idea on Thursday, calling it "delirious" and "a publicity stunt by Washington".

On Wednesday, Zelenskiy addressed Ukraine's parliament, giving an annual speech looking ahead to the coming year, in which he vowed that Ukraine would win the war. In a video address to citizens on Wednesday evening, he urged Ukrainians to hug their loved ones and offer love and support to those around them as New Year's Eve approaches.

"We have not lost our humanity, although we have endured terrible months," he said. "And we will not lose it, although there is a difficult year ahead."