Multiple explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital Kiev and the cities of Lviv, Ternopil and Dnipro on Monday, after Russia accused Ukraine of orchestrating a powerful blast that damaged a key bridge linking Russia and Crimea.
Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne quoted emergency services as saying there were dead and wounded in Kiev, but did not provide further details on the casualties.
“Several explosions in the center of the capital,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko Klitschko said on the messaging app Telegram.
A Reuters witness saw a huge crater at one of the downtown intersections and nearby cars completely destroyed, scorched and littered with shrapnel.
Explosions were also reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine and in Dnipro in central Ukraine.
Russia abandoned an initial advance on Kiev in the face of resistance fueled by receiving Western weapons sent to Ukraine.
Since then, Moscow and its proxies have focused on the south of the country and the Donbass region, an eastern territory made up of Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk, in some of the heaviest ground fighting in Europe since World War II.
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