He called the rain of missiles that fell on the country “the death twitches of a wounded animal.”
The attacks on the centres of Ukrainian cities had once again shown the “terrorist nature of the Russian regime,” he continued.
“The masks have fallen: This is targeted mass killing of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure.”
He added that the struggling Russian army has no idea how to fight on the battlefield and is therefore firing rockets at people.
There were a series of rocket attacks on the centre of Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, on Monday morning. Explosions were also reported in several other major cities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said energy infrastructure was among the targets.
He urged residents to take shelter as an air raid alert was in effect across much of the country.
Initial reports from officials in Kyiv put the toll to at least five people killed and dozens wounded, but there were fears the numbers would rise.
“Kyiv hasn’t experienced anything like this in months; people stopped paying attention to the air raid sirens, so it’s a very, very different reality this morning,” Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from Kyiv, said.
He said “In fact, I would say nothing like this has happened since the start of the war, and even at the beginning of the war, there weren’t as many centr[al] strikes as have taken place today,” Challands also said.
“There’s no doubt here in Kyiv that this is Putin’s revenge for the Crimea bridge, and he’s taking it out on some of the softest targets there are, which are civilians”.
“They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app. “The air raid sirens do not subside throughout Ukraine. There are missiles hitting. Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded.”
(dpa/NAN)/ Al Jazeera
